“Well, you missed it. You got up and left the damn discussion, old man.”
“I was introducing myself to Rowan and Lorena,” he said. “You should tell it again. Not everyone gets a chance to hear these stories, you know.”
“Ah hell,” said Wayne. “How about if the girl rolls a nine?”
Lorena’s turn was next. “What’s the story about?”
“Roll and find out.”
She rolled the dice. The outcome was an eight, which disappointed her more than she had anticipated even though she landed on a space that gave her more money.
“Damn it,” she said.
Wayne smiled. “I’m just playin’ with you all. I’d love to tell the story again—I love my job that much.”
“Can we not?” asked Hailee. “She’s thirteen.”
“Her age don’t matter,” said Wayne. “I bet she’s seen worse out there than any of you. She can handle a little story, can’t you girl?”
“I guess.”
“Great,” he said, rolling the dice. “Just so you and the boy know, I’m a plague doctor here at Hearst Castle. I take care of any infection problems that arise.”
He moved his piece a couple of squares forward. “Earlier this mornin’, I ran into this odd man a few miles north of here. I ain’t ever seen a man like him before. He was jumpin’ and ravin’ all about Jesus and when I came up to him, he got sickly and scared as hell. And I mean frightened out of his goddamned mind. At first, I thought he was just scared and all about me poppin’ outta nowhere because he was all on his lonesome, but he was mutterin’ some shit and I told him to speak up. He said I wasn’t real and to go away, so I had to convince him that I was real somehow. Slapped that son of a bitch as hard as I could.”
Felix laughed and had almost forgotten to make his move. “Wish I could’ve seen the look on his face.”
“Boy, did he look mighty shocked,” said Wayne. “He sure as hell thought I was real after that. Couple of tears later and a few more smacks on the back of his head and I finally got him to speak to me. I asked if he had some people with him because I had to make sure I wasn’t gonna get jumped by any more of these lunatics, and he actually led me over to a whole camp filled with these fuckers. Can you believe it? There were more of them!”
“God, I sure wish I was there,” said Anthony. “I don’t want to be a janitor anymore. Being a plague doctor seems so much better.”
“Janitors are important,” said Hailee, taking her turn. “You’ve got the most important job here, you know.”
“Now, now,” said Wayne. “Let’s not understate the importance of my work, Hailee. As I was sayin’, I found myself in a camp full of these infected folks. Like the other guy, they thought of me as nothin’ but a delusion. Only this time, they couldn’t be convinced that I was real. I was hittin’ ‘em and firin’ my gun in the air, but all they’d do was start pleadin’ to God to save them from the devil’s lies. Course, this pissed me the hell off. Any moment longer and these guys would’ve turned into a cult and they would’ve started killin’ everyone over here.”
Rowan glared at Wayne before making his move. He hadn’t been paying much attention the past few hours, but he couldn’t ignore such an abhorrent story from one of the plague doctors. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to speak up and end the conversation. There was more on his mind to worry about than to bother arguing with someone he didn’t really know.
“Can’t have any of these guys causin’ any trouble, you know?” said Wayne, motioning to Anthony to hurry up and roll the dice. “Shot one right in the head and sent ‘em scatterin’. Now, I can’t say I wasn’t expectin’ that, but it was annoyin’ as hell. Can you imagine if one of ‘em ended up here?”
Anthony tossed the dice with enough force to knock over a few houses on the board. “We can’t ever let that happen.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ve always got things under control.”
Hailee picked up the stray houses and placed them back into their original positions. “Come on, seriously?”
“Leave those,” said Wayne. “Who cares about ‘em?”
“You don’t care because they’re not your houses,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied. “Anyway, back to the story. I had this bright idea and hollered out that I found Jesus, and they all came rushin’ back. Can’t believe it was that easy, to be honest. I decided to have a little bit of fun and whispered to one of ‘em that the guy I first found was the devil and that he was makin’ all of ‘em suffer. Sure enough, the guy believed me. Told the rest of the gang and they did my job for me—saved myself a precious bullet.”
“Good on you for that,” said Felix. “We could use all of the supplies we can.”
“You’d be glad to hear that I didn’t even use a single bullet on the rest of ‘em. I—”
Lorena placed the dice down and interrupted Wayne. “Why’d you do that?”
“Roll your dice before I do it for you,” he said. “You ain’t understand how the sick are like, do you girl? You’ve got to get rid of ‘em. It’s kind of like makin’ the world a better place with each one of ‘em gone.”
“Not exactly true,” said Rowan, grabbing the dice before Wayne could. “We know how the sick are like. Some of them can be good.”
“How so?”
“You said it yourself. We’ve seen worse out there than many of you.”
“Then you know how dangerous they all are.”
Rowan placed the dice in Lorena’s hands. “I told you—some of them can be good. I knew one of them. We knew one of them—and I’ll leave it at that.”
“I believe them,” said Hailee. “Two kids ending up here all the way from Los Angeles? They’ve seen way more than you have, Wayne. Surely you agree with them?”
“Can’t say that I do. The infection is a plague—no matter how the sick act, good or bad, they ain’t good for our world. They ain’t good for our society.”
“What do you think, Margaret?” asked Anthony. “You and Wayne are never on the same page about stuff.”
She stopped leaning on the wall for a second. “Wayne’s right—it’s not good when you’re sick. It’s not good.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” he howled. “Now, let’s get back to the damn game already.”
Lorena said nothing more. Like Rowan, her mind was now elsewhere. She still played just like the rest of them, though she did so with a muted sense of action. Consequently, she was the next person to get eliminated, but she silently cheered Rowan on until he ultimately won at the end of the night—an achievement that only she seemed happy about.
When it came time to clean up, Rowan and Lorena followed Hailee to the room checkout area. She brought them to a relatively small building adjacent to the one they had just exited, where a hunchbacked man with sunken eyes stood from his seat and greeted them with a simple “hello.”
“We’re looking to get a room,” said Rowan.
“Tobias told me you two would be coming,” said the man. “My name is Ismael. Let me take you both to your room—it’s quite a beautiful one, courtesy of Tobias’ orders.”
They were taken to a building that wasn’t too far away from where they just were. Ismael went in first and turned the lights on, revealing a large, spacious bedroom with a king-size bed in the corner. There was a fresh change of clothes for both of them laid out on one of the dressers, and the connected bathroom was furnished with clean rugs and brand new shower curtains.
“I’ve provided both of you with some new clothes in order to reduce risk of infection. I would also suggest taking a bath. We have running hot water, so enjoy yourselves.”
Ismael excused himself and closed the door behind him. Rowan looked at the clean, black shirt that was given to him and glanced at Lorena, who was playing with a rip in her shirt.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Just thinking about what Wayne said.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s got nothing to do
with us.”
“I know. It’s just scary how some people think.”
Rowan folded the shirt back up and headed to the bathroom. “People are like that. Sometimes things happen to them that make them that way.”
Lorena bit her lip. “I hope I don’t end up like that.”
“You won’t. I know you.”
“And I hope you don’t end up like that, either.”
Rowan merely nodded in agreement and closed the bathroom door. It took him and Lorena hours to finally refresh themselves, but once they did, the sheer insanity of Hearst Castle hit them stronger than ever before. This was a real place with real people with real advantages—and there were people out there on the fringes who would never get the chance to live in a community like this. Health, safety, and leisure were all concentrated in this Eden. Those who did not fit the standards set by those who lived here were forced to live in fear and uncertainty for the rest of their lives. They were forced to suffer.
At the end of the night, Rowan and Lorena sank straight down into the enormous mattress. Their pillows were soft and inviting, and Lorena felt safe under the warmth of their new blankets. As soon as she said good night to Rowan, she could not repel the instantaneous sleep provoked by the incredible comfort that now consumed her.
Rowan, on the other hand, couldn’t fall asleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about being out there—out there on those cold, dead roads—walking nearly two hundred more miles to get back home. What if he was on a fruitless mission? Would life even be worth living if he returned home just to find out that everyone he loved was dead?
He needed to clear his mind. He carefully crawled out of bed and cracked the door open, shutting it before any light could filter into the room. There was a small breeze outside, which tumbled the leaves underneath Rowan’s feet as he followed the signs to a place called the Neptune Pool. Once he was there, he was enamored by how the moonlight illuminated the beautiful blue water, and he wondered why no one else was here to take in such a sight. The place seemed to be designed with Roman and Greek architecture in mind, with white columns and marble sculptures bordering the outside of the pool. Even though there was a pit in Rowan’s stomach that hadn’t left him since that evening, he could finally tolerate it for once.
The boy knelt over the pool and stared at himself in the water. He gently ran his hand across his reflection before taking a seat on a set of curved steps that faced the pool. What was he doing here? He knew he had to get back home, and yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to force Lorena to stay so he could go. In a way, he also felt guilty that he was in such a lavish place without his family.
Rowan wondered if the night sky he was now staring at looked the same to Caitlyn. Was she looking up, too? The stars were out in full force tonight. Perhaps all of them were his unfulfilled wishes, stuck in space, with no plans on ever coming true. He thought about making another wish, but it just felt pointless. Caitlyn would make one, though, and if she was indeed watching the stars like he was, she would make a wish for him, too.
After a few more moments of peaceful silence, Rowan noticed Hailee approaching him from the distance. She looked unsurprised to see him, as she kept a steady pace and she greeted him with a quiet nod.
“You know,” she said, placing her hands into the pockets of her sweatpants. “You really shouldn’t be out here. We’ve got a curfew.”
“Then why are you out here?” asked Rowan.
Hailee took a seat next to him. “Same reason you are. I like to unwind at night whenever there’s something bothering me.”
“So you’re not going to report this, then?”
“Of course not. I’d be snitching on myself if that was the case.”
Rowan looked back up at the sky. “Good. I need this right now.”
“May I ask you something? If it’s not too much of a bother?”
“About what?”
“About Lorena. As a mother, I’m concerned for both of you since you’re both so young, but I know you’re trying to get back to your family, so I don’t want to question you leaving here. But Lorena, she doesn’t have to go, does she?”
“She doesn’t, but she wants to.”
“That kid has a soft spot for you,” said Hailee. She looked at Rowan directly, but his gaze remained on the stars. “You’ve got to let her stay here where she’s safe. She worries about you and cares about you, and any trouble you run into is going to be trouble for her. You don’t want that, do you?”
The chill of the night air glided against Rowan’s neck. “Of course I don’t. But she’s a person with her own feelings, and I’d be doing the wrong thing by trying to control them. She wants to help me, and if I don’t let her, I really don’t think she’d be happy.”
“Sometimes, you need to force someone to do something even if they don’t like it.”
“Hailee, I started this journey with her. She’s been through too much with me just for me to betray her like that. She lost her father, you know.”
“I don’t mean to pressure you. I apologize. But I want you to think about it—and I want Lorena to think about it, too. We always need to make decisions that are best for us and the people we care about, and I think this is a decision that can’t be made lightly.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe the best thing for Lorena is for her to stay with me?”
“Why do you think that?”
“She doesn’t know anyone else here but me. I don’t think she would feel safe or comfortable if I left her here alone.”
“Even if you’re gone, it doesn’t mean that she’d be here alone. She’ll find her footing, just like everyone else. It’ll take some time getting used to, of course, but she’ll grow to really like this place.”
“And if she misses me?”
“There’s always someone to miss. You can’t avoid it. If it’s not you, then it’s someone else. Like her father.”
“Fair. But I’m not going to add to the growing count of people that she misses if it’s something that’s in my control.”
“It’s better that she’s sad than dead, isn’t it?”
Rowan stood up. “Listen, I’m getting kind of cold, so I’m gonna head back. Maybe I’ll talk to her about it, okay?”
“Please do.”
14
In the morning, Rowan and Lorena had to go see Tobias to pick out their jobs. Hailee had sought out Lorena during breakfast, and she managed to convince her to become a kitchen assistant as it was something that was relatively easy on her leg. Lorena had helped her father out in the kitchen throughout much of her life, so it wasn’t anything new to her. When she told Tobias what she wanted to do, there was a great glow in his eyes, and he instantly went off on a tangent about how the community was growing and how they would soon need more cooks and helpers other than Hailee.
Rowan decided to do something more standard. He took up barricade duty, which most of the other residents at Hearst Castle signed up for. After leaving Lorena with Hailee, he headed toward all of the workers building fortifications along the perimeter of the property. At the edge of the outermost wall was Wayne’s wife Margaret, who worked quite slowly at hammering a wooden stake to the ground. She was isolated from all the other workers, and from a distance, Rowan could see a look in her eyes that he recognized in his own. He left her alone.
The boy ran his hands along the extensive, rusted sheet metal wall in an attempt to study it until he suddenly heard a grunt by his side. He turned to look at the crimson-haired interruption, who by now had stomped quite a distance away from him. The grump was a young woman with a scowl painted on her face.
Based on her odd reaction to his presence, Rowan thought that he must’ve fucked something up on the wall—but everything looked fine to him. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, since he didn’t want to make any enemies here in case he decided to come back with his family. The girl must’ve been only two or three years older than him at the most, so he wasn’t too afraid to approach her oth
er than for her boorish attitude.
“Hey,” said Rowan, coming up next to her. “What’d I do?”
She glared at him. In a split moment, however, any semblance of discernible expression was erased from her face, as if she had suddenly realized how rude she was being. “Nothing,” she said.
“Then what’s wrong? You grunted at me back there.”
“You heard wrong.”
“So we’re cool, then?”
“Yep.”
Rowan examined the barrier directly next to the one the girl was working on. “Well, I’m Rowan. Let me know if you need any help.”
“Don’t think I’ll need anything. You’re new, anyway—you’re the one who’s probably going to need help.”
“If I do need it, then what do I call you?”
“Lyra. But you won’t be getting it from me.”
Rowan walked away. He didn’t want to start his day off by being angry, but it was too late. Now, he wanted to leave Hearst Castle more than ever. He was in a place with people who couldn’t really give a damn about him. Perhaps it would be more tolerable if Caitlyn and his family were here, but he wasn’t so sure. He just missed home.
He spent the rest of his work shift at the far corner of one of the outermost walls. It had been neglected, as most of the workers often stayed near the front gate to chat with one another. Rowan had barely put up a couple of slabs of wood together by the time the evening sun dipped past the horizon, but he was actually starting to get the hang of it. His wall was sturdy and resistant, and he even put a couple of extra nails through the planks to serve as a trap for anyone who tried to barge through.
Before heading back to the kitchen to grab dinner, Rowan took a long walk along the wall. It stretched further than the distance between his apartment and his school, which was more shocking to him than anything he had seen at Hearst Castle so far. This place was so enormous, and yet it housed so little. The barricades now felt quite excessive. There were five whole different layers to the outside walls, but perhaps they were necessary for the future. After all, people were going to want to live here even if they weren’t allowed inside.
Seasons After Fall Page 15
