The woman, Gwen, interrupted. “We don’t have time for this!”
She was right.
The two groups stood opposite each other, like warring tribes. Lines drawn and redrawn. It dawned on me that we were no longer part of any tribe or group. We were only part of each other and those bonds were loose and fraying at best.
Joseph stood up tall. “Look, I am just trying to protect my family.”
My shoulders pulled together at the words. I had the urge to make an excuse and creep away, slide along the wall like a thief and run into the woods. Instead, I took a few steps into the middle of the group. “If we need to go, then let’s just go. But we need answers. Whoever is willing to give them can ride with me.” I scanned the group. Cal went to step forward but I shook my head. He was a worm I wanted to crush under my foot. Anyone but him. I wanted it to be Matthew but he was avoiding my eyes.
Gwen stepped forward. “I don’t know why we’re making such a fuss. We have nothing to hide. I’ll answer any questions you like,” she said, her voice like a whip, tight and lashing. I didn’t recognize it from the conversation in the bathroom and was a little disappointed I couldn’t use what I had heard to catch them out. Gus looked like he was going to object but she glared at him and he turned away. Right then, I liked her.
Everyone pushed their things into the remarkable carriages. Piles of crisp white sharper still against the blaring purple and dusty blue. Tracing the shape when the door was open, they were like giant marbles with a second sphere floating inside them. I heard Alexei exclaiming that they must be electromagnetic, whatever that meant. I squinted at the edge of the door, trying to decipher how they worked, but dogs barking distracted me and we were told to get in. Dogs and sleds went in the rear carriages with Bataar, and the rest settled in to wait for cover of dark.
We took off our suits and piled in. Our entire original group squished into one carriage with Gwen, who sat cross-legged on the floor, staring up at us. She was athletic looking, her limbs svelte under the thin leggings and a cotton top she had on underneath her suit. She was much taller than me, and tanned. She was like a cricket, with strong upper thighs and spindly thin calves. I imagined she could jump very high. Her hair was long, black, and plaited down her back. She played with her fingers as we tried to get comfortable, chewing on her nails and spitting them on the floor. My guess was she was not much older than us, maybe mid-twenties.
She scrunched up her face, creating dimples high up on her cheeks. “What do you want to know?”
“What, er, how did you build this amazing train?” Alexei asked. I wanted to slap him. That wasn’t important right now.
Gwen looked amused. “Borrowed technology. Next.” She flicked a nail upwards and it landed on the table in front of Apella. Disgusted, but at least showing a tiny sign of life, Apella used her pinky finger to flick it off.
“Yes but the reflections or absorptions…” Alexei stuttered.
Rage was boiling up—could he ever focus on what was important? Joseph took my hand, lacing his fingers with mine, Orry sleeping comfortably in the crook of his arm. I rolled my eyes; he would have to put that baby down eventually.
“Alexei, can you save those questions for later, please?” I said, trying not to sound too annoyed. I was trying to simmer it down to the one most pertinent question. All the questions mixed together in a whirlpool as the temperature rose and some floated away with the steam. Why had they rescued us? Why did they help us? Where were they taking us? What was expected of us when we got there? No. What was it?
Simple.
“Who are you?” I asked plainly, realizing I should have asked this about six weeks ago. Staring into her dark eyes, they looked like fiery black coals. I identified with that kind of attitude.
She raised her eyebrows and gave me a quick smile. Then her face turned serious. “I am a survivor. I live beyond the wall. I give shelter to those that need it. I am not chosen but I choose to live.”
A shiver ran through me, icier than the frozen land surrounding us.
Everyone went quiet for a few minutes. The words pulled at us. They were stern and accusatory. Full of heavy meaning we could not weigh. Apella stared at her wispy fingers. Alexei was deep in contemplation. Deshi was trying to stop Hessa from climbing onto the table. Gwen resumed her attack on her nails as we absorbed what she had just said. The last words echoed in my mind, a mirror image of what we had always been taught. I am not chosen but I choose to live. We were chosen—we were told that we were the lucky ones. Maybe we were. But I doubted it.
Everyone was staring at their hands or at the walls. But I didn’t feel this guilt. I didn’t ask to be chosen. Neither did they. Besides, now all we were chosen for was recapture and probably death.
“Is that the Pledge?” I asked, surprised faces all around.
Gwen nodded. “That’s part of it.”
“Do we have to take the Pledge?” I know Cal said we had to but I needed someone saner to confirm it.
“It’s preferred.”
“Or what?”
“Or nothing—we’re not going to force you to do anything.”
I didn’t believe her.
Joseph looked up. Gwen seemed startled by his intense gaze and blushed. He smiled, trying to make her more at ease I suppose, or using his good looks for evil. I shifted uncomfortably on the vinyl seat. A shred of jealously peeked out from behind my eyes. Watching him, it occurred to me that if you knew how, you could brandish your looks like a weapon, but I doubted it would work for me.
“Where are we going?” he asked, fluttering his eyelashes slowly, sweeping his hair back and handing me Orry without breaking eye contact with Gwen. He was giving her a look that said, You’re the most important person in the world right now.
“To our settlement; it’s about a day’s ride from here,” she answered, her voice stripped of its earlier attitude, lower and softer than it had been minutes ago.
Joseph then launched into an absolute tirade of questions, but, as with everything, he handled it so well. His words poured from his mouth in a hard-to-keep up kind of way, sweetened like honey. She was like a fly caught in a trap. She answered everything as best she could, eager to please him. I wished I could be suave like that. Not just bust in and threaten people to answer me with my fists up and my eyes ablaze. Sometimes, well, most of the time, I didn’t really understand what he saw in me.
“Are you the only ones?” Joseph asked.
Gwen shook her head, not as an answer but in dismay. “Pretty much. We are the biggest group, at least. There used to be tiny pockets of people all over but your Superiors took care of most them. If there are any leftovers, we certainly haven’t heard from them in years.”
“How have you managed to stay hidden for so long?” Joseph said in a complimentary way.
Gwen smiled. “Your Superiors have become lazy of late. All they seem to worry about is their new projects and experiments,” she said, holding her fingers in mock air quotes. I cringed. I was one of those experiments. “We hid for a long time, never staying in one place for too long, but when we realized no one was coming for us, we built a settlement.”
I hated that she kept referring to them as ‘your Superiors.’ I didn’t want to be linked to them. I had enough blame hanging over my head without adding the Superiors atrocities to them.
“But I guess that’s changed now,” Gwen muttered sourly.
Joseph leaned down and touched her arm gently. Steam rose slowly from the top of my head and I tried to wave it away. “We’re sorry,” he said.
She looked up at all of us. “Don’t be,” she said plainly.
When asked what the settlement was like, she wouldn’t go into any detail, just grinning and saying, “You have to see it for yourself.” Like it was some kind of inside joke we had to see to understand. I prayed it wasn’t underground.
Deshi, who had been listening intently but not volunteering any questions of his own, suddenly spoke up, his voice tight. “What
are you going to do with us?” Hessa, as if reacting, slammed his fist on the table like an angry father, like my angry stepfather.
She flipped her head up to look at him. “You? We want help deciphering some of these borrowed technologies we can’t work out.”
She pointed to Apella, whose pale face had barely shown a flicker of interest since Gwen started talking. “You? We need help with our infertility issues.” Apella looked away, her expression that familiar mask. She and my mother could compete for who could be the least outwardly emotional. I knew they would have a hard time convincing Apella to go down that road again, if at all.
She continued to point at each of us. Joseph, they thought would be useful in their surveillance group or maybe helping out in their hospital. Alexei was a wealth of information about the Superiors.
“And you?” Her finger hovered as it pointed at my face. “I don’t know what they want to ask of you.”
“Ask?” I said, confused.
“Yeah. Well, I mean, they’ll ask you to help with those things but if you don’t want to, that’s fine. But you have to contribute in some way,” she said, waggling her finger at us as if we were children.
In some ways, I suppose we were. We were fledgling Survivors who had been previously raised by an uncaring and ruthless society. Everything she said was so foreign it was hard not to be overwhelmed. But it sounded fair. And impossible. So different to what we were used to that it just didn’t seem plausible. Everyone looked nervous, playing with fingers, eyes darting around, looking for a way out. Choice was not something we were overly familiar with.
I leaned into Joseph’s shoulder, yawning. Hessa was playing with my fingers, looking under my flattened palm like he might find some hidden treasure there. Joseph laughed. “People will never believe you’re brothers,” he said, looking from one to the other.
Deshi stood and yanked Hessa away from me. He made Apella and Alexei shuffle out of their seats and quickly exited the carriage.
“What’s wrong with him?” Joseph asked, confused.
I thought I knew. “I’ll go check on him,” I said.
Joseph shrugged but there was a tautness to it. The muscles around his shoulders and neck were straining, like he was holding in something nasty he wanted to say. He was all edges and sharp bits. “I don’t get it. You and Deshi are close now? Apella looks like she’s been hit by a train and you’re not enjoying it? What’s going on?”
Gwen took this as an excuse to slip out. I didn’t blame her. That was enough questions for now.
I swept his hair back out of his face gently. He shook me off furiously. “Rosa, just tell me.” He held my free hand, warmth and fluttering closing out the bizarre surroundings for a second.
I wanted to cry, in truth, blubber and confess all the dark secrets. But this was not my story to tell. If Apella wanted to tell him, it was up to her. I looked at her and she shook her head. My body slumped as I exhaled. Think of a good lie. He put his hand to my face, begging me to look at him. I felt his lips brush the top of my head.
“Some things are just not worth hanging on to anymore,” I whispered. I looked at Apella, a big ‘thank you’ reflected in her face. It would kill him to know the sacrifice she had made for him. I slipped out of Joseph’s grasp like I was shimmying out of a dress, handed Orry to Apella, and went to find Deshi.
There weren’t many places for him to go. The tunnel was short, light shining through both ends. I remembered the other tunnel, the way it curved around for a mile. I couldn’t bear to leave it and leave her behind. And when I got to the end, I was blinded by the loss and the white light of morning tried to pull me from the ground.
Deshi was pressed up against the wall with one foot up, holding Hessa, frowning deeply.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked.
“What do you care?” he snapped.
“You know, you sound like a child.” I came out here to be nice. So much for that.
His dark face looked older. Older and grumpier. I stared at him for a long time, trying to stir a reaction. He glared at me for a while and then did something so unexpected that I nearly erupted into laughter. His face screwed up tight and I thought he was going to say something rude like he always did but instead he burst into tears.
My eyes widened and I took a step back. I wondered if I should hug him or pat his arm but something told me this would not be received well. This was not our dynamic. I knew less how to comfort him then I knew how to tame a bear.
“What’s the matter with you, you big girl?” I said, apprehensively. My lips curled up only because I was forcing them to.
He snorted, wetly, and wiped his face with his sleeve. Hessa reached up and touched his tear-stained face, which only made him go another round of bawling.
“Don’t take him away from me, please,” Deshi begged, shaking a little.
Confusion messed up my thoughts. The unfair, but very strong, urge to smack him and tell him to pull himself together was making my hands shake like they were straining at the bit like the sled dogs. My total lack of sympathy reinforced to me what a terrible mother I was.
“Why would we do that?” I asked. I thought he was upset about Joseph and me and of course, I was wrong.
Deshi took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes, considering his speech. “Well, now that you and Joe are all happy families, and Joe keeps calling Hessa and Orry brothers… I guess I thought maybe you were going to make that official.”
I laughed. Deshi looked offended. “You have been more of a parent to Hessa than I will ever be. I wish I were better, but I’m not. I would never take him away from you,” I said, realizing that may not be how Joseph felt, but I would make him see. I hoped.
He stopped sniffing and ran his hands down his shirt. He straightened up, clearly embarrassed by his behavior. “All right then. Good. Thank you.” Hessa nuzzled into Deshi’s chest. I knew it and hopefully Joseph would see it too. They belonged together. He started walking back to the carriage. I stayed where I was. What I had said was right. Deshi was a much better parent than me. How long would it take before Joseph realized that and his disappointment started to affect our already strange relationship? As if hearing my thoughts, Deshi turned around, his demeanor much calmer now.
“You know, you’re not a bad mother,” he said. “I don’t think anyone expected you to be the kind that fussed over her child, or clapped every time they did something uninteresting like blinking.” I just stared at him. He was saying I was cold. “You don’t realize that this mother thing, well, you’ve been doing it this whole time. You care for your son; you feed him, change him, and respond to him when he cries. I’ve seen you rocking him for hours. I guess, what I am saying is, you are a mother. You love your son. Stop being so hard on yourself.”
I sighed and nodded. He tipped his chin just slightly and walked back to the group. Maybe he was right. But I still felt lacking, like I had made promises I hadn’t kept. Sometimes, it was so easy to get lost. I had lost myself to my grief for Joseph. I needed to start keeping my promises. Beginning now.
Just one thing I needed to do before we left.
Matthew was sitting at the front of the carriages. Everything about the way he sat oozed sadness. It rolled off him in waves. His shoulders were hunched and he was squatting down, observing rocks in a distracted way that made me think his mind was elsewhere. I leaned down and touched his back gently. His muscles tightened. He startled but quickly composed himself, giving me a thin smile.
Matthew was different from the others. He seemed less able to let the fallen go, more likely to cling to life. I could see the rest of them kissing their necklaces and following each other off a cliff if that’s what they were told to do. Matthew was a fighter. Not like me, though. I just closed my eyes and started flailing my arms around, hoping to connect with something. Matthew was a quiet, contemplative fighter with a plan and actual technique.
“What’s the matter, Rosa?” he said wearily.
“I
was going to ask you the same thing,” I said
He waved me off. “Oh, I’m fine. It’s just been a long day. A lot of lives lost, which happens, I mean, it happens all the time, people die but…” He seemed unsure of himself again, stuttering. The survivor philosophy was shackled to him but it didn’t quite sit right on his shoulders.
“It’s ok to be sad about it,” I said, trying to sound comforting.
“I know, dear, but it’s not useful,” he replied, standing and dusting off his pants. He was handsome for an older man. I wondered if he had a wife or kids at home.
I screwed up my face at that. “Who cares?” I wasn’t even sure what he said was true. If death was a part of life, so was grief. It was important. It made me think that everything needs a proper goodbye.
He laughed weakly. “I like you, Rosa, but there is a lot you don’t understand.”
I tried not to snap at him. My mouth was bursting to give him a smart-mouth retort. I put my hand to my lips, physically trying to keep it in. I shrugged my shoulders. “I came to ask you something. Can we go out to the woods for a bit?” It was getting dark.
“I suppose,” he said. “Just keep your ears open for choppers.” Then he returned to staring at the ground. I remembered when I sat staring at the rails, thinking they were the only thing keeping me from being swallowed by the ground, half-wishing I had the courage to just let go and let myself be swallowed. I frowned at the memory but then smiled at the fact that, somehow, I got through it. With help, I got through it.
“Ok.”
I took a lighter and a knife from one of the men’s bags and made my way back to the carriage where our snow suits were stacked inside the door. After putting the outfit on, I tramped out into the woods. The cold was a shock but I pressed on, looking for a nice circle of trees with low, protective branches.
The trees were kind to me, bending down. The snow pulled the branches towards me in an embrace and hid me from the menace in the skies. There was barely any greenery, just different shades of brown, iced with fluffy white. The sounds of my feet crunching over the ice were not that different to the crunching my boots once made over the gravel of the railway line. Thoughts were dangerous but I let them take me back, laughing at the fact that all that time, the rails were in use. It explained why they were so intact. If we had stayed on them, perhaps we would have been run over by one of their invisible trains. It wasn’t really very funny but you could either laugh or cry. It was much easier to laugh.
The Wall (The Woodlands) Page 8
