“I missed you,” I said.
He flapped his wings.
“I don’t suppose you know where she is?” I stared into his mirrored eyes. They probably had cameras in them, scanning the world and remembering what they saw. Were they uploaded to some forgotten server somewhere? Could somebody be watching me right now? I doubted that, so I kept talking: “Mr. Quist thinks Dr. Varden is protecting her somehow. Maybe they’ll get out of here together. I don’t know where they’d go, though. I don’t think they can go back to MIT, right?”
His wings went up and down no faster or slower.
The kitten opened her gray eyes and regarded Prince Philip.
“I just want to say good-bye. Good-bye for now. And maybe make a plan, a way to keep in touch? If I could reach her one time and let her know …” I sighed. “None of this means anything to you, does it?”
Up down. Up down.
“I used to think the two of you were alike, but you’re not. Not at all. She thinks and reacts and has feelings and dreams and hopes and fears and—well, you just record and react and you’re kind of cute, so I can think that you have feelings, but you really don’t. I could pull a wing right off you and you wouldn’t even care. I could do this.” I held out my hand so that Prince Philip was resting on my palm, contentedly buzzing the way a real bee might as it returned to the hive. With a sudden motion, I flipped my hand over and Prince Philip fell to the floor.
There was a soft crashing and scraping sound. A bit of scratching and then, not a minute later, Prince Philip flew back up to me.
“You’re pretty stupid.”
Buzz-buzz. Wings up and down.
“But I guess I am, too. Talking to a robobee and holding on to a book like it’s a person.”
There was a rustle and then a smack and then the kitten was on top of Philip, batting the robobee around with her paws.
“Stop!” I called out. “Stop it!”
I pushed the kitten off Philip. I barely had time to register his twisted wing before the kitten dug her tiny claws into my hand. “Ow!”
I shook my hand and the kitten fell back off my bed and landed with a small thud just as my parents opened the door.
“Mori, what is going on here!” Mom said.
“She scratched me!”
“So you threw her?” Dad asked.
“I shook my hand to get her off it.”
The kitten sat in the center of my carpet and licked her front paw. Mom bent over and scooped her up. “Maybe the kitten was a bad idea.”
“You think?” I shot back.
“Mori!” Dad said.
“I didn’t ask for a kitten! I’ve never wanted a kitten!”
“That doesn’t mean you can talk to us like that. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but—”
“But what?” I demanded. “Are you going to dampen it out of me?”
Mom lowered her head. The kitten stretched out and rubbed Mom’s chin with the top of her furry head. Kiss-up. “We understand that you’re feeling a lot of anger,” Mom told me.
“You took my best friend away and gave me a stupid kitten!”
Dad shook his head, but Mom said, “We didn’t take her away from you. If it was up to us, she never would have come.”
“Same difference,” I said.
“No,” Dad said. “Not the same difference. You never would’ve been hurt and you certainly never would’ve pulled that foolish stunt.”
“Right. It’s all her fault. That’s the story, right? That’s the lie we’re telling?”
“Stop,” Dad said.
“I just want to make sure I get on the right page, or, what was it you said? Get ahead of the story? Is that what you meant? Make up a more acceptable story before the real one comes out? I guess that’s just the way things operate around here. Something is inconvenient, you burn it down. A project isn’t justifying its cost, if it goes off course, then you just scuttle it. A kid isn’t exactly perfect, just dampen away. Hide it. Fix it. Lie about it. That’s what we do here.”
“We have a way of life to protect here, Mori,” Mom said. “You have to understand that I would do anything to keep you safe. Dad and I both would. If we step out of line here, we risk so much. I don’t think you understand that.”
“What? Are they going to kick us out?”
“That’s a possibility, yes,” Dad said. “There’s plenty of people who want in to Old Harmonie. People who will follow the rules and people who respect the ideals of this place.”
“Which ideals exactly, Dad? I mean, destroying a whole town, which core value is that?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“The reservoir. Mouse and Amnah used to live in that town!”
Mom and Dad looked away from me, and from each other. Part of me had hoped I’d been wrong about the reservoir, or that they hadn’t known, but the way they couldn’t look at me told me they knew the truth.
“And you’d get rid of Ilana, too. All in the name of keeping me safe. If that’s what being safe means—if that’s the way of life you’re trying to protect—then I’m not interested. I’m not going to lie about Ilana to protect myself.”
“This is bigger than you, Mori,” Dad said. “It’s bigger than all of us.”
“And that’s a reason to give up?” I asked. “You told me to never give up. Persevere, persevere, persevere.”
“But not when persevering is running into a wall again and again and again,” Dad tried to explain. “If you had come to us, we would have told you that there was nothing you could do to help her.”
“You would’ve been wrong. I did help her,” I said.
“For a short time, yes,” Mom said.
That stopped me. Either Dr. Varden had her and she was safe or … something else. Did my parents know what had happened to her? “Where is she now?” I asked.
Mom and Dad exchanged a look.
“It’s possible—” Mom said.
“I’m coming to you now. I want your help. I want to know where she is and if she’s okay.”
They didn’t answer. They were going to keep on protecting Old Harmonie and Krita no matter what.
“That’s what I figured.” I reached down and pulled up my sheet. “I’m really tired and I just want to go to sleep, okay?”
There was a long moment of silence. The moonlight came in the window and lit the space between us. All they had to do was step through that light over to me. For a moment, I thought they would. But then Mom said, “Okay. Good night, Mori.” Still snuggling the kitten, she left the room with my dad right behind.
29
Outside my window, darkness had fallen. The clouds were thick, so there wasn’t even a moon.
I could make it. I could make it out to the fence.
I just had to wait until my parents went to sleep.
Closing my eyes, I listened hard. Nothing. I went to my door and cracked it open. My father’s snores drifted down the hallway, but so did my mom’s soft, shuffling feet. I sat down on the floor of my room and waited. And waited.
Eventually, the shuffling stopped. My eyes were heavy by then, but I rubbed them hard and stood up.
Dad had replaced my dirty old sneakers with bright white ones that would carry the evidence of my late-night adventure. I pushed open the hallway closet and found my rain boots. The neoprene tops felt tight against my calves, but they were my best choice.
I opened the front door and felt the cool, fresh night air. Finally, I could breathe.
Firefly Lane at night was just how I remembered it. At least that hadn’t changed. The buzz from the solar batteries was the first sound that truly felt like home, and I stepped in each circle of light before I realized that would make me easier to see.
When I went by number 9 I stopped like I’d been punched in the gut. Elma was gone. They must have scooped up my tree when they’d done the cleanup after the fire. I shook my head. No time to mourn a tree. What would Theo think of that? Mourning a tree? Som
ehow I thought he might understand better now.
The playground was empty. No more DeShawn and his stupid friends. No little kids laughing. This is what it would be like if Old Harmonie ended. Everything would be silent and empty, and slowly, slowly, nature would take it back over.
The forest floor was soft. Without a moon, it was nearly pitch-black, but I knew the way. I couldn’t stop myself from running, leaping over the small trickle of water that had swollen into a respectable stream, sidestepping the patch of poison ivy. This was home. This was home.
My breaths came as fast as my skittering heartbeat. Breathe in, I told myself. Breathe out.
Once my breath was under control, I could listen. Animals rustled on the ground and in the trees. In the distance, coyotes laughed.
But that was all.
An owl hooted and for a moment I actually believed it was the one Amnah and I had seen together. That was impossible, of course.
It hooted again.
I hooted back.
Silence.
Then I whispered, “Ilana!” A little louder, “Ilana!”
Silence.
The owl hooted.
Silence again.
I sat as still as I could.
The forest was big. Really big. It curved all around the neighborhoods of Nashoba.
Next to me was a thick stick covered over with lichen. I picked it up and leaned it against a nearby tree. I found three pinecones and placed them around the stick. A rock shaped like an oversize egg caught my eye. Perfect. I placed it right beneath the stick and then surrounded it with an oval of pebbles. I reminded myself of what we’d learned in that survival class: if you’re lost, you should hold still. If you stay in one place, someone will come to find you. Ilana knew I went there at night, and she’d know where to find me. The rock and pebbles, they were a message to her, a promise that I would always come back to look for her. And if she didn’t come soon, that was okay. I could wait a long time. I’d stay in Old Harmonie on Firefly Lane so that when things were safer, when we were both grown, she could stroll right down our street, and I’d be there.
I lay down in the soft moss, the kind that could cradle you. Ilana and I always said it would make a good bed. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I did. And I had the most wonderful-horrible dream. Ilana came back.
In the dream, I opened my eyes. I was back in the hospital. Ilana was there. I told myself, Stay calm. This is a dream. I wondered, though, if you could know inside a dream that it wasn’t real.
“Mori,” she whispered. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Are you really here?” I asked.
“I’m really here.”
But people can tell the truth in a dream and have it still be false.
She reached through the entry tube and put her hand on my arm. The touch was familiar and kind. “Oh,” I sighed.
“You’re okay?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“They wouldn’t tell me.” She stepped closer to the bed and rustled my plastic bubble. The monitor machines cast a red-green glow over her skin.
“They wouldn’t tell me about you, either. My orderly said she wasn’t allowed to talk about you.”
Ilana turned away. “They’re erasing me.”
I lifted myself up onto my elbows. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head. Outside, a clock tower chimed eleven. Ilana stilled her body. “Nothing,” she finally said. “They’re just trying to protect you. So it doesn’t hurt as much when I go.”
“Where are you going?”
She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were bright again. Even in the darkness, I could see their beautiful color.
“Ilana?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
We were in the woods now, in the way that people move in dreams sometimes: in one place and then blurring into another. We stood in the tree in Oakedge, side by side.
“But how will I find you?” My voice cracked. I gripped the bark of the tree.
“I’ll find you,” she said. “I promise.”
“I love you, Ilana.”
“I love you, too, Mori.”
She put her arm around me and we stood like that. Still. Looking out over our windswept kingdom. Until, after minutes or hours or days or lifetimes, she slipped away.
And then I woke up.
I missed her so much, my whole body ached.
But I also thought that maybe the dream was true. That she was someplace safe. That I didn’t need to worry so much.
It’s a mixed-up feeling, though, to have to wonder if your dreams are your own.
Snap! The sound came from deeper in the forest, followed by a crash! I held my body still and tried not to breathe.
The crunching sound of feet came closer.
Could it possibly be?
“Ilana,” I whispered. Then, a little louder, “Ilana!”
“No,” a voice came back. Theo’s voice. “It’s me.”
“Oh,” I said. I couldn’t hide my disappointment. Theo stepped into the clearing, then sat down next to me on the moss. I rubbed my eyes. “How’d you know to look for me here?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Come on, Mori. Anyone who knows you would know to look for you here.” He rubbed his hand lightly over the moss. “Do you really think Ilana’s going to show up here?”
I shrugged. I knew I couldn’t lie to him. “Maybe someday.”
“Maybe Julia’s right. Maybe she’s safest if we don’t know where she is. And maybe we’re safer, too.”
“So you want to forget about her?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that. I’m just worried about you. This isn’t what Ilana wanted for you, I know that much. She didn’t want you all twisted and tied up.”
The tears came again, hot and fierce. Theo patted me on the shoulder two times, and then, a little awkwardly, he pulled me closer to him for a hug. I kept crying and once again got tears and snot all over his shirt. He held still and let me cry.
“We should go home,” he finally said.
I nodded, but neither of us moved for a moment. Then he got to his feet, and I did, too.
We didn’t talk as we walked through the forest and the playground. One of the swings was going back and forth, but there was no one around.
He led me around the Kellermans’ house and in through the center of the cul-de-sac. The skinny trees shook a little with each gust of wind, which seemed to be getting stronger.
When we got to the very center, Theo stopped. “I looked into it for you. Having a house here, I mean. It would be easy to bring out the water line. Power would be tricky with the trees, but if you had enough batteries, it could work. The main problem would be getting a driveway back in here.”
“You really looked into it?” I asked.
“Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t that big of a deal. So you could do it. Or you could rebuild where number nine was. Either way.”
“Why’d you look into it?” I asked.
“Because I want you to stay,” he told me.
“You think I’m going someplace?”
He shrugged. “I think of leaving, so I figured you might, too. Anyway, we should go. If our parents find us out of the house, life as we know it is over.”
“Life as we know it already is over.”
“Maybe,” he said. And started walking.
We popped out behind his house and he walked me around the corner of the cul-de-sac. We stopped at my front door. “Thanks,” I said. I wasn’t really sure what I was thanking him for. For getting me home, for finding me in the woods, for figuring out how I could have my house. All of it, I guessed.
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, when we were outside. About how I might not really, really like you. How it could just be something programmed into me. And maybe it was. I don’t know. But it doesn’t feel that way to me.”
“My parents said it wasn’t programmed, not that
I can trust them.” I looked up toward their window, which was dark.
“Well, to me it feels real and I think that’s all that matters.” He held still for a moment. Long enough for us to settle into the noisy silence of our street at night. Then he turned and ran back to his house.
I slipped into my house. The kitten met me with a soft meow, and I picked her up. Her fur was soft under my chin. I placed her in my bed, then crawled in beside her. She fell asleep quickly, and I was about to do the same when there was a gentle knock on the door.
30
Mouse stepped into my room. She carefully shut the door behind her, then she sat down cross-legged on the floor. My parents had bought some clothes for her and Amnah, and she wore a set of pajamas with a moon and a star on the shirt. I waited a moment and then sat down next to her on the braided rug.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. Her voice was as soft as ever, but in the quiet of my room at night, her voice was warm and clear. “In here, they pay a lot of attention to kids. It’s like they built the world around you. It’s different where we’re from.”
“I know,” I told her.
The kitten mewed in her sleep.
“I think I know how to get to Ilana,” Mouse said. “And if we can get to her, we can get her out.”
“Did you hear something? Do you know where she is?”
She shook her head. It seems my heart would have learned not to hope so hard by now, but it hadn’t, and I felt crushed again. “But I do think we can get to her. I think you can get to her.”
“How?”
“Apologize.”
The word hung there. Apologize? To whom? To Krita, who created a person they were willing to kill? To Ms. Staarsgard, who was going to lie about Ilana? To my parents, who wanted me to go along with the lie? “No way.”
“You have to. You apologize to your parents and to Theo’s mom and to everyone. You go along with their story. And then you ask if you can say good-bye to her.”
“They’re not going to let me.”
“Beg. Plead. Say whatever you need to. If we can get in, we can get her out.”
The Daybreak Bond Page 20
