UnBound

by Neal Shusterman

  The road curves outside the village toward the wide fissure in the cliff and dips into a gulch filled with gleaming one-story buildings separated by greenbelts.

  “This first building is the pediatric lodge,” Wil explains tersely as they pass. Wil doesn’t stop, but Lev peers through the windows and into the patios, hoping to see the medicine woman. He sees other healers and groups of children, but not Wil’s ma.

  Lev shoots a look at Wil and sees his eyes glued on someone ahead: a short girl with warm almond eyes, a cascade of feathers woven into her vest, and a faint smile that reminds Lev of Risa. She is standing in front of another medical lodge, stalling at the door, when she catches sight of Wil.

  Even before they speak, Lev realizes that this must be Wil’s fiancée. There’s a connection between them perhaps even more powerful than Wil’s connection with his guitar. As Wil approaches her, Lev thinks they might kiss, but instead Wil reaches for the beaded ribbon restraining her hair and unties it, sending her shiny black locks cascading down her shoulders.

  “Much better,” he says with the slightest of smiles.

  “Not for the workshop,” she points out. “It’ll wrap around a saw blade, and my head will get cut off.”

  “Now that’s what I call unwinding!” Wil says with a smirk. She gives him a glare that’s more like a visual rim shot, and he laughs.

  “Una, this is Lev. Lev, Una.”

  “Hi.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lev.” She snatches at Wil’s hand, but as he’s much taller than her, he easily holds the ribbon out of reach. “Give it to me, Wil.” Then, as if she’s had years of practice, she leaps and yanks it from his hand. “Ha!” Winking at Lev, she says, “Take notes, Little Brother. If you hang with this one, you’ll need that move.”

  Lev isn’t sure why she’s calling him Little Brother, but he feels pleased.

  Una studies Wil. “Is your uncle back?”

  Something intense passes between them. Lev notices that this lodge has CARDIOLOGY carved in large wood letters above the door.

  “Yeah,” Wil says. “Didn’t find anything. So are you here to see my grandfather?”

  “Someone has to,” she says. “He’s been here for weeks, and how many times have you visited?”

  “Stop it, Una. It’s bad enough I get it from my family.”

  “You get it because you deserve it.”

  “Well, I’m visiting now, aren’t I?”

  “Then where’s your guitar?”

  Something crumples in Wil’s face, and Lev looks sideways, not wanting to see the tears building in his eyes. “Una, I can’t do it. He wants me to soothe him into death. I just can’t do it!”

  “It doesn’t mean he’ll actually die.”

  Wil’s voice gets louder. “He’s waiting for me when he should be waiting for a heart.”

  And although Lev knows none of the particulars, he touches Wil on the arm to get his attention and says, “Maybe he’s waiting for both . . . but he’ll accept one if he can’t have the other.”

  Wil looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time, and Una smiles. “Well said, Little Brother,” says Una. “I suspect if you were one of us, your spirit animal would be an owl.”

  Lev feels himself go just the tiniest bit red. “More like a deer in headlights.”

  Lev follows them inside and to the far end of the building, where a spacious round room is subdivided into four open alcoves. It feels less like a hospital and more like a spa. There are large windows framed in rough-hewn wood. Blooming flowers decorate the walls, and in the very center is a fountain gently drizzling water over a copper sculpture made to look like a stylized dream catcher. There is state-of-the-art medical equipment in each alcove, but placed discreetly, so as not to disturb the calming nature of the place.

  Of the four beds, only two are occupied. In the one closest to the door rests a young woman who breathes irregularly, her lips tinged blue. In the farthest bed is a gaunt old man, who looks tall even lying down. Lev stalls in the hallway with Wil and Una until Wil takes a deep breath and leads the way in, mustering a smile.

  His grandfather is awake. Seeing them, he chuckles delightedly, but the laugh turns into a ragged cough.

  “Grandfather, this is Ma’s patient Lev. Lev, this is my grandfather Tocho.”

  “Please sit,” Tocho says. “Keep standing around me and I’ll feel like I’m already dead.”

  Lev sits with the others but scoots his plush chair slightly back, disturbed at how pasty the old man looks, his face drawn and his breathing ragged. Lev sees the family resemblance, and it unnerves him that this frail man probably looked like Wil sixty years ago. This man is dying for lack of a heart. It reminds Lev of the heart he might have provided someone. Did a person die because Lev kept his heart for himself? There’s still a part of him that wants to feel guilty for that, and it makes him angry.

  Wil picks up his grandfather’s hand. “Uncle Pivane says he’ll bag a mountain lion tomorrow.”

  “Always tomorrow with that one,” Tocho says. “And I suppose you’ll play for me tomorrow too?”

  Wil reluctantly nods. Lev notices how he won’t meet the old man’s gaze. “I don’t have my guitar today. But yes, tomorrow for sure.”

  Then Tocho wags a finger at Wil. “And no more talk of changing my guide to a pig.” He smiles hugely. “Not happ’nin’.”

  Lev looks to Wil. “Pig?”

  “Nova’s dad isn’t the only one who divorced his spirit guide. My dad writes petitions to the council all the time asking to switch people’s animal spirit guides to something more . . . helpful. It’s no big deal.”

  Tocho’s expression is mutinous. “Big deal to me. Lion chose me.” He turns weakly to Lev. “My grandson thinks I should change my spirit guide to a pig, just so I can have a new heart quick and easy. What do you think?”

  Lev knows that this is a test. Tocho isn’t really seeking Lev’s opinion; he wants to know Lev’s heart. Will he say what he believes, or will he say what those around him want to hear? And whose side will he take?

  Wil throws Lev a forbidding look, but Una nods at Lev, giving him silent permission to speak. “This is all new to me,” Lev says. “I don’t think I would want an animal part . . . but sir, I think whatever lets you keep your dignity is the right thing to do.”

  Wil’s frown is so severe, Lev tempers his answer just a bit. The old man is testing Lev, but Wil is too.

  “But on the other hand, if the heart of a pig saves your life, you could take it for now, and then get a lion heart when they find one.”

  The old man grins. “Why stop there?” he says. “Add the heart of a goat, and I can juggle them.” Then he begins to laugh-cough again.

  Lev isn’t sure whether he passed or failed anyone’s test. “Uh . . . maybe I should wait outside.” Lev starts to get up, ready to make his escape, but Una stops him.

  “You’ll do no such thing. It’s refreshing to hear an outsider’s view. Isn’t it, Wil?”

  Wil considers it. “We can learn things from the outside, just as they can learn things from us. And if an old tradition ends your life before its time, then what good is it? Not many mountain lions on the rez anymore, but there are plenty of pigs, mustangs, and sheep. It makes no sense to insist on a part from his animal spirit guide. Choosing a different animal is simple logic. Shouldn’t a flush of logic beat a straight of tradition?”

  “Neither,” Lev says. “In games of chance nobody wins but the house.”

  A beat of silence, and Una throws her head back and laughs. “Definitely an owl,” she says.

  Tocho locks his eyes on Wil. “I will hear you play tomorrow,” he says. “You will smooth the path of dying for me. You shame me by refusing. You shame yourself.”

  “I will play for your healing only, Grandfather,” Wil says. “After you have a new heart.”

  The old man stares stonily at his grandson, his earlier good humor gone. He turns toward the window, shutting them out. The visit is over
.

  • • •

  “While your people focused on the business and science of unwinding, the tribal nations’ scientists worked on perfecting animal-to-human transplant technology,” Wil tells Lev on the way back to Wil’s cliffside home. Una left Wil with a halfhearted kiss on the cheek and returned to the luthier workshop. Wil waited until she was gone before he retrieved his guitar. “We overcame organ rejection and other problems caused by interspecies transplant. The only thing we can’t use is animal brain tissue. Animals don’t think the way we do, and it just doesn’t take.”

  “How come you didn’t share with our scientists?” Lev asks.

  Wil looks at him as if it’s a stupid question. Maybe it is.

  “We did. They weren’t interested,” Wil tells him. “In fact, your people condemned it as unethical, immoral, and just plain sick.”

  Lev has to admit that a part of him—the part that was indoctrinated into a world where tithing and unwinding were accepted—agrees. Funny how morality, which always seems so black-and-white, can be influenced so completely by what you were raised to believe.

  “Anyway,” Wil continues, “our legal powerhouse crafted an intricate set of laws, based on traditional belief systems, for using this technology. When ChanceFolk come of age, they take a vision quest and discover their spirit guide, which can be anything from a bird to an insect to a larger animal. Of course, after the council transplant laws came down, it was amazing how many kids, coached by their parents, came up with pig guides.”

  Lev doesn’t quite get it until Wil explains that, aside from primates, pigs are biologically closest to humans. “Mountain lion is a worst case,” Wil says. “Vastly different biology from humans, and on top of it, carnivores weren’t created to last as long as plant eaters, so the hearts give out quickly.”

  “So what’s your spirit guide?” Lev asks.

  Wil laughs. “I’m even more screwed if ever I need an organ. It was a crow that spoke to me.” And then he becomes silent for a moment. Pensive. The way he gets when he plays. “They call my music a gift but treat it like an obligation. I am shameful if I don’t use it the way they see fit.” He spits, leaving a dark spot on a boulder as they pass. “I would never accept a human part, Little Brother . . . but there are many things your world has to offer that I would take.”

  “Like a cheering crowd?”

  Wil considers it. “Like . . . being appreciated.”

  4 • Wil

  Wil knows he’s opened up too much to Lev. An AWOL is supposed to open up to them, to find solace in their acceptance, not the other way around. He vows to shutter his heart a little more securely.

  The next day Wil’s spooning out breakfast porridge for Lev and himself when his father calls. Ma takes the call in the study, expecting bad news, but then comes out to put it on speaker because it turns out to be the kind of news everyone should hear.

  “We bagged a mountain lion a half hour out in today’s hunt,” Wil hears his father say. “Pivane is already harvesting his heart.”

  Intense relief reverberates through the house. Even Lev, who met Grandfather only once, seems overjoyed.

  “Wil, go now and tell your grandfather,” Ma says. “And be quick about it. For once, good news will travel faster than bad.”

  Wil grabs his guitar and asks Lev to come along. He even takes Lev in the elevator rather than making him struggle down the ropes.

  • • •

  “You’re a stubborn man, Grandfather, but you finally got your lion heart!” Wil says, swinging his guitar around, ready to play some healing tunes even before the transplant.

  “Stubbornness is a family trait,” the old man says flatly. Wil notices that his grandfather is looking at Lev, not because he’s giving Lev his attention but because he’s avoiding eye contact with Wil. It makes Wil uneasy.

  “What’s wrong, Grandfather? I thought you’d be happy.”

  “I would be, if the heart were mine.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Grandfather twitches a finger at the crowd around the other patient’s bed. Wil barely noticed them when he came in, so intent was he on giving Grandfather the news—but apparently the news had already reached him. The woman in the other bed is in her late twenties or early thirties. The family around her seems very happy in spite of her dire condition.

  “The heart is to be hers,” Grandfather says. “I’ve already decided.”

  Wil stands up so quickly that the chair crashes backward. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m a poor risk, Chowilawu. Too old for it to make sense when there’s someone younger with a better chance of survival. Her spirit guide is the lion too.”

  “It was found by your family,” Wil fiercely announces, loud enough for the woman to hear. Good. He wants them to know. “It was found by your family, which means it is meant to be yours and no one else’s.”

  His grandfather’s gaze drifts again to Lev, and that makes Wil angry. “Don’t look at him. He’s not one of us.”

  “All the more reason. He’ll be objective. He won’t be clouded by a family’s emotion.”

  Lev takes a step backward, clearly not wanting to be a part of this any more than Wil wants him to be.

  “It’s your heart” is all Lev says.

  Wil is about to relax, relieved to have Lev on his side, until Grandfather says, “You see? The boy agrees with me.”

  “What?” both Wil and Lev say in unison.

  “It’s my heart,” Grandfather explains. “Which means I have full legal right to decide what happens to it. And I choose to gift it to the young woman over there. I will hear no further discussion.”

  Fury and grief nearly overwhelm Wil. He storms out of the cardiology lodge—but there is no escaping this. Word of Grandfather’s decision reaches the rest of the family quickly. Within the hour, while Wil still stews and storms outside, ignoring Lev’s attempts to calm him, his family begins to arrive: his parents, then Uncle Pivane. He sees Grandfather’s closest friends arrive. He sees Una. They’ve all been called to give the old man their good-byes. They’ve come for the final vigil.

  “Do it for him,” Ma says gently as she enters the cardiology lodge. “Please, Wil, do it.”

  He waits outside until everyone has gone in, even Lev. Then he takes the long walk down the hallway toward the round room at the end. The woman in the other bed is wheeled past him, followed by her family. She is already prepped for surgery.

  Inside the room his family sits on chairs and on the floor. Lev has held a chair for Wil. His grandfather’s weary eyes are fixed on him as he takes his spot. He begins to play. At first he plays healing songs, but the tempo is too fast. He’s playing them too desperately. No one stops him. Then, in time, the songs evolve into traveling threnodies: tunes meant to ease one’s passage from this world to the next.

  Over the next few hours Wil melts so completely into the music that his family ignores his presence. He hardly listens as they all say their good-byes, or as his grandfather speaks about the spirit’s journey from its failing temple to other realms. He ignores Lev, who appears more out of place than ever with the family. Una crouches next to Lev near the window, listening to Wil play, but he won’t look at her. Wil catches a glimpse of his dad’s face, etched with sorrow. His father still wears his hunting gear, as does Uncle Pivane, although his uncle is stained with the animal’s blood. There is the smell of a bonfire coming from outside the lodge, the giving of thanks, the exuberant singing of the young woman’s family.

  As the day wears on toward twilight, Tocho almost seems to dissolve before them, giving in to the call from beyond. Then, very near the end, he reaches out to stop Wil from playing, motioning him closer.

  He has one last request for Wil, and he whispers it with long spaces between the words. Wil agrees; he hasn’t the strength to argue about tomorrow, because his grandfather has only today.

  The promise made, Wil loses himself in the music again, faintly aware of his ma in her hospital whites
solemnly taking his grandfather’s vitals and shaking her head. Wil plays as his grandfather’s breathing slows. Wil plays as his uncle Pivane quietly weeps. Wil plays, the music of his guitar covering everything, until it carries his grandfather’s soul to a place Wil cannot see. And when Wil finally lifts his fingers from his instrument, there is nothing but overwhelming silence.

  5 • Lev

  In the very center of the rez, miles from its many villages, sprawl the ChanceFolk burial grounds. Many families have adopted the Western use of caskets, more traditional ones bury their dead wrapped in a blanket, and some still invoke the most ancient ritual of all. Although levels of tradition in Wil’s family are very mixed, his grandfather was as old-school as they come. His funeral is of the ancient kind.

  Tocho is placed on a high platform made of cottonwood and heaped with boughs of juniper. Reed baskets, decorated with lion teeth, are filled with food for the afterlife and hung from poles. A fire is lit, and smoke leaps into the wind. Lev watches carefully, storing the memory.

  “Our ancestors believed that the breath of the dead moves to the Lower World,” Una explains to him.

  Lev is shocked. “Lower World?”

  “Not hell,” Una says, understanding what he’s thinking. “It’s the place where spirits dwell. Down or up—neither of those directions has much meaning in the afterlife.”

  Lev can’t help but notice Wil standing apart from everyone else, as if he’s suddenly the outsider. “Why isn’t Wil taking part in the ceremony?” Lev asks Una.

  “Wil followed our traditions because he loved his grandfather. Now he must decide for himself whether to follow the traditions or not. And so must you.”

  Lev first thinks she’s joking. “Me?”

  “When your residence petition is approved, you will be an adopted son of the tribe. In addition to protecting you from your unwind order, the adoption will make this your official home. Like everyone else here, you’ll eventually choose on which side of the rez wall your spirit belongs.”