Winter Omens

by Trisha Leigh

  In spite of the way we seem to know each other on a deep level, the reality is that we don’t, so Pax drops the inquisition. Instead, he tells me what he likes about Anne and what he doesn’t, how he hopes the other stories we brought along have more boys in them. While he talks, I curl my fingers around the two round, red burn marks in the center of my palm.

  ***

  Over the next ten days, sleep becomes a luxury I can’t afford. The thought of my mind accidentally going back into that hive, giving the Others permission to enter my brain, keeps me awake more often than not. I catch a few hours here and there, but by the time my eyes fall closed I’m too exhausted to dream at all. I can only hope that means my mind stays in the blessed emptiness along with me.

  It’s funny that the pressing nothingness of traveling used to be the worst thing imaginable. The memory of that feeling, that I don’t exist in this world, fills me with familiar dread, but if I could go to the nothing place, maybe I could get some rest.

  The nice thing about all the extra time is the reading. I’ve read Anne twice more, and Harry Potter and A Wrinkle in Time two times each. I love them all, for different reasons, but I’ve been harping on Pax for the last two days to read Wrinkle, which was written by a lady named Madeleine L’Engle. There’s a scene toward the end that reminds me of the humans on Earth, and I love that it acknowledges the existence of species besides humans but doesn’t assume they’re all bad.

  Pax likes Harry Potter so much that he keeps re-reading it. My favorite thing about that one is how the kids end up saving the day, and that’s the bit I’m hoping Pax likes the best, too. All of the magic opens my mind to so many ideas, even though I’m pretty sure the Others don’t have access to that kind of power. That’s why they needed the Spritans and went out of their way to create beings such as Cadi and Ko. So they could do those spells and things. It’s interesting that the humans who wrote the stories imagined the possibility before the Others came, though.

  Pax said he finished Wrinkle when we woke up this morning. According to the map we took from the Cell in Omaha we’re somewhere north and a little west of a place called Denver. We’re getting closer to Salt Lake City, where we’ll go north while I-80 continues its relentless journey west, but it’ll still take us at least another two weeks to get to Portland, we’ve guessed. It’s been snowing like crazy, making the miles we cover slower and harder than they were in the plains. Mountains rise up out of the ground to the north and south of us, their beauty alone enough to make me want to fight for this planet.

  “The part you were telling me about was the one on Camazotz, right?”

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about A Wrinkle in Time, about the scene at the end where Meg has to go alone to a weird, terrifying planet to save her father. “Yes. I mean, obviously the Others aren’t giant brains pulsing and controlling everything, but…”

  A shudder rolls through Pax, strong enough to see. “The kids bouncing the balls in time with one another? It freaked me out. Like the way we all watch the same movies at the same time every Saturday in our identical houses in our matching towns.”

  I’ve thought the same thing a million and one times. Even though humans aren’t doing every single thing in unison, it’s creepy that people aren’t in control of their lives. I wonder again why the Others need to keep them alive, what resource Earth has that they need. Why they don’t simply kill everyone and use the conquered planet for themselves.

  “And the one kid on Camazotz who didn’t bounce his ball the same as the rest of them, who got taken away for not falling in line—” I pause. “—do you think he’s us?”

  “Yes. The pain they inflict to force him into submission, the Others can do that, too.”

  It’s a statement, not a guess.

  I suspect Pax knows about the agony the Others can cause without lifting a finger. They infiltrated Cadi and Ko’s minds in front of me, then the Prime’s son tried to Break Lucas the night before we escaped. They haven’t done it to me, and I hope they never do. But they captured Pax. There’s a good chance he has firsthand experience.

  The conversation about the book takes us until lunch, which turns into more of a stop than usual when Wolf appears with a fat rabbit clutched between his strong jaws. Pax takes it from him, and it strikes me how Wolf has become kind of his, too, these past several days. The dog no longer trusts only me, and will sit next to Pax when he stays up late reading by the fire. It’s hard to believe, sometimes, that the Others could find us out here. The land is completely deserted, and we haven’t seen any large cities since leaving Nebraska behind.

  It’s been snowing all morning, and for the past half hour the winds have started to really blow. It could be Air and Water working together, trying to strand us or kill us or make us surrender before the latter happens. Or it could be that it’s a normal winter in a place that seems pretty harsh as it is. From the places we’ve walked, treading west, it’s easy to see why the Others didn’t choose to place a Sanctioned City out here.

  The wind and snow nip at my face until it feels tight and dry. My feet and hands tingle, then go numb, even inside socks and gloves and my coat pocket. Visibility drops, and when Pax turns, he shouts to be heard over the howling.

  “We need to stop! I think we’re going off course; we can’t see well enough to keep straight! Look for a place to get out of the snow!” His face betrays nothing, but panic trips under his words.

  Even though I tell myself he’s not scared, my stomach ties itself into knots, pulling tighter and tighter as the world goes white and the drifts stack up past my calves. Pax and I have to hold hands to stay on course, and I snag the stiff fingers of my opposite hand into the fur at Wolf’s neck, not wanting to lose him, either. We haven’t seen anything for miles—days maybe—but before that we would occasionally stumble upon half-standing buildings. Most nights we’ve built our own shelter either out of the growing number of hills and mountains or out of blankets and sticks. Together we’ve gotten pretty good at fashioning ways to keep the wind and snow at bay, if nothing else, and the fact that I can prevent frostbite comes in handy.

  When a sign made out of thick stone, still standing in the deep drifts, appears in front of us, it looks as unbelievable as Cadi’s magic.

  Fort Laramie National Historical Site.

  I have no idea what a fort is, but we have to get out of the snow, now. The sight of a pretty solid-looking building standing several yards behind the sign loosens the fear threatening to tear me apart. With the howling wind pushing us backward, it takes Pax and me another fifteen miserable minutes to shove our way to the one-story, white building. When we push inside, out of the cold, it feels like we’ve discovered the best place on this entire planet. Wolf shakes from head to toe, dismissing snowflakes and water in every direction until Pax and I are soaking wet and shrieking with relieved laughter.

  We settle down and explore our temporary home. My stomach grumbles at the thought of Wolf’s lunch offering, but there’s nowhere to make a fire, at least not at the moment. The building’s walls are lined with glass display cases. Some hold weapons, others strange-looking leather clothes with turquoise and fringe, and another has some sort of ancient uniform inside. There are framed maps and quotes from people I’ve never heard of about what I assume is a race called Native Americans. Apparently they had some kind of quarrel with the people who lived in this place before, when it was called Fort Laramie.

  At one end of the creepy ode to the past is an expanse of soft leather wrapped around three upright sticks. It’s roped off, as if it’s some kind of display, and the floors inside are covered in animal fur. In the center is a fake fire pit, and I wish more than anything I could start a real fire there. The opening in the top of the structure, which the sign calls a tepee, looks like it’s meant to vent smoke, except we’re not outside.

  Instead, Pax volunteers to go outside to clear a spot for a fire after we find a broom in a storage closet. The south side of the buildi
ng is semiprotected from the huge drifts piling up against the north wall, and I get a pretty good fire going after a few tries. Between the three of us, the rabbit is gone within ten minutes of being cooked, and then we stretch out on the furs inside the tepee for a nap. It’s cold inside the building, but not terribly so once Pax, Wolf, and I are under a couple of blankets.

  Pax’s breathing evens out, then Wolf starts to snore. My eyes grow heavy, even though I’m trying not to sleep, so I pick up one of the books touting the past of Fort Laramie that we found in a little store at the front. It doesn’t take long before the words begin to blur and I can’t remember why fighting the heaviness is so important.

  CHAPTER 10.

  Thankfully, this afternoon’s slip into the unconscious doesn’t result in any forays into the Other hive. That I can remember. Pax’s snores make me smile as I lay in the darkness, then I roll over and press my nose against Wolf’s. He pants, which makes him look as though he’s smiling, and pleasure crawls under my skin.

  “Hey, bud. Think it’s stopped snowing? Maybe you can go out and catch some dinner.”

  He and I extricate ourselves from the tepee without waking Pax, but the windows reveal the opposite of no more snow. We can’t have slumbered that long, but a white blanket smothers the world as far as the eye can see. Branches of the huge pine trees hang heavy with mounds of fluff, the ground is covered, and it’s still coming down hard. There’s no way we’re going anywhere tonight. Probably not tomorrow, either. This fort is a lifesaver, plus it has more books than I know what to do with. Although if they’re all going to put me to sleep, I’ll stick with the made-up stories.

  Outdoors is silent under its frozen cover. The lack of noise is strangely comforting, as though the storm insulates us from the rest of existence, wraps us in a cocoon that can hide us away. I know that’s not true—the Others are part of me, and they’re part of Pax. It’s not fair to him to keep the secret of the hive mind from him, to hide that they’re looking for us inside our subconscious, too. I’m being selfish, afraid he’ll leave when he finds out.

  But he’s keeping things from me, too, and we’re never going to be able to move forward together, or apart, if we don’t find a way to face each other without secrets. Even though we’ve been thrown into each other’s company, there’s no implicit alliance the way there was with Lucas. I knew instinctively he’d always be on my side, that we’d find a way to align our visions for the future. But it’s different with Pax. In some ways, more exciting. And more infuriating.

  Pax appears at my side as though my musing called out to him, jarring me out of the warring thoughts in my head and heart. For a long time we stare outside at the weather that’s going to trap us for days. Our breath fogs circles on the glass. A sideways glance at his strong profile, the determined set of his jaw, and his dark hair tightens my chest, and I have to resist the urge to reach out and touch him. When he meets my eyes I see the same smothered desire trickling through his carefully constructed façade and a deliciously warm pleasure fills me. My mind slogs through what it wants, groping for a safe topic.

  “Seems like we’re not leaving this fort anytime soon,” I remark. Boring, but safe.

  “Looks that way. Come see what I found in the shop.”

  We’d found the store during our initial sweep of the building, but what Pax shows me now is a game, played with small rectangular pieces of laminated paper—cards. While we read the instructions, Wolf goes out into the storm. Whether he’s looking for food, making waste, or simply stir-crazy remains a mystery, even though we’ve traveled together for weeks now. I think animals aren’t meant to be cooped up, is all. He gets restless.

  Pax and I play a silly game called Go Fish, then another called Old Maid until we get bored. Wolf returns again with sad eyes and no food, so we eat some green beans and split another two cans of tuna between the three of us. We’re almost out of the provisions we took from the underground room in Iowa. “We’re going to need food soon.”

  Pax spreads the map out on the floor, walking his fingers between Laramie, Wyoming, and Salt Lake City. It’s at least as far there as we’ve come from Omaha, which means another ten to fourteen days, depending on the weather. But another rummage through our supplies reveals perhaps only another four or five days of food. If we stretch.

  More than we have been already.

  With the winter weather, Wolf’s had a harder time finding animals to kill. I’ve lost so much weight my filthy, permanently wet jeans slide down my hips all day long. The shop where we found the books and cards also has clean clothes, so I change out of my stiff jeans and into a pair of soft pink sweatpants and a matching hooded sweatshirt with FORT LARAMIE written on the front. All of the clothing smells musty, but at least it’s dry.

  I don’t like this place, or what it seems to represent—a fight between different kinds of people who all wanted the same land. It reinforces the questions Lucas and I kicked around after seeing a news report about a couple in Portland. The man had Broken and killed his Partner, then himself, leaving their young son alone and probably half Broken, too, after witnessing all of that. I wondered whether humans weren’t better off the way the Others kept them. Sure, they’re cut off from the good emotions—the ones that flood me in the presence of Lucas and Pax come to mind—but humans are also incapable of the violence that I’m beginning to fear once ruled them as a species.

  I wonder if Pax knew that family, since he was in Portland last season. Probably not, though. There must be hundreds of families in Portland. I never knew them when I spent seasons there.

  Back in the tepee in our warm, clean clothes, Pax surprises me when he puts down the thick tome about Fort Laramie he’s been reading and voices my train of thought. “This place kind of makes me feel like humans aren’t any better than the Others. I mean, according to the plaques on the walls and this book, the guys in the fancy uniforms tried to take the land from the American Indians, but who knows who they took it from before that. Were humans always fighting wars?”

  The word war rings a bell, and after a moment I remember I saw it in Lucas’s note holder; it was part of the words I liked:

  A time for war, a time for peace. To everything, there is a season.

  I recite as much as I can remember for Pax, and although he gets the gist of what they mean, his lips pull down into a distasteful frown.

  I redouble my efforts to show him an opposite opinion. “Look, I’m not saying that I want to fight the Others, but Ko said the time has come. And the words, they say there’s a time for everything, even to fight.” The sentiment tastes sour on my tongue. Last autumn, I was the one telling Lucas we needed to tread carefully so the humans wouldn’t suffer because of our actions. “We could keep the humans safe, maybe, if we understood our abilities better.”

  Pax studies me for a minute, then digs A Separate Peace from his pack. He keeps it close to him, so it’s the one book among our things that I haven’t read. He hands it to me, letting go a little bit reluctantly when I tug it into my lap. I feel the same way about my locket. It’s never away from its place around my neck.

  “You should read it. It might change your mind, about people. About war.”

  “It’s about war?” Curiosity needles, urging me to open and start reading right away.

  “It’s about a lot of things, and most of them aren’t very nice. I’ve spent years figuring Ko picked it for a reason, that there’s something about the story or the people in it that are supposed to teach me something particular.”

  “And have you figured out what it is?”

  His voice hardens around the edges. “Maybe. It doesn’t mean I agree.”

  Pax gives me a tight smile before getting up and going outside to take care of personal business. When he comes back, I’m sitting in the glow of the lantern we brought from Iowa, already on chapter two of his book.

  “‘Night.” Pax lies close enough to keep warm but far enough to avoid touching me. The scent of minty toothpaste,
the fresh outdoors, and his particular mixture of spicy sweet smoke makes me dizzy.

  I hold my breath, withstanding the war between the fading memory of Lucas’s affections and the nearly frantic desire to feel what it’s like in Pax’s arms. Not that he would invite me in; Pax seems as intent as I on not crossing any kind of line past traveling companions or casual friendship.

  Wolf pads in between us, flopping down with a great sigh and closing his keen eyes. Left alone in the silence and flickering light, I return to the story of Finny and Gene, which has already captured my attention with the wavering trepidation spread through its pages.

  ***

  The Prime’s son finds me in my alcove. He doesn’t look like the Deshi we knew last autumn; he looks like the Other who grabbed Lucas and would have killed us both when he shed his disguise. I don’t remember getting to the hive tonight, or whether or not I saw my mother. When Chief’s painfully cruel face pops into my space, it’s as surprised as I feel. He doesn’t expect to see me here.

  The ensuing panic startles me into motion in the same second he reaches out to grab me. His long fingers slide through loose strands of my hair, grasping enough to rip at my scalp. I scream because of the scorching pain, because of the fear, and my brain struggles to extricate us from this place where we aren’t present, not physically. He can’t follow me into consciousness, but if he gets enough control to keep me asleep, they’ll find a way to make me tell them everything. Where I am. Who I’m with.

  Pax. I can’t betray him. I struggle harder, until hair rips free from my scalp and my attacker is left standing with nothing but a fistful of red strands.

  Right before I wake up screaming, I see Flacara—my mother—standing behind him, as calm as can be. Maybe I don’t try hard enough to block her from my mind. In spite of everything, Fire is still my mother—which in no way means she won’t get me killed.