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In front of us, Leif steered his horses around boulders and in between fallen tree branches on the way to the southern outpost. The horses pounded the dirt, their hooves keeping a steady beat. We made our way around the rocky shore of the lake, its slick, inky surface mirroring the moon. “It’s only a little farther,” Caleb whispered. A hawk swooped down in front of us, cutting a path across the sky.
A gun fired miles off, echoing through the mountains. Arden pulled me tighter, her fingers digging into my skin. Ahead, Leif turned his horse into a patch of overgrown grass. Six other horses followed, black silhouettes, carrying the older boys and the four new Hunters. Silas, Benny, and the younger boys had remained in the dugout, sleeping soundly with the morning’s promise of chocolate bars and sucking candies.
Leif glanced around, his face half in shadow. “The outpost is a hundred yards ahead,” he whispered. “If anything happens, do not use force, no matter what. ”
“If anything happens?” I repeated, whispering into Caleb’s ear. “What does he mean?”
“It’s only a precaution,” Caleb said. I could feel his heartbeat as I rested on his back. “Killing a New American soldier, even in self-defense, is an offense punishable by death. ” He brought the horse into a slow trot. “An incident happened at another outpost a year back. The King retaliated by executing an escaped orphan. ” I winced, imagining a young boy, alone and afraid, coming up against the King’s troops.
We left the horses in the clearing, their necks bent as they chewed on grass. Caleb took my hand in his own and that familiar warmth returned. I’m okay, we’re okay, everything’s okay. The repetition calmed me. Beyond the trees I could make out a converted house, its facade barely visible in the moonlight that slipped between the branches. The windows were boarded up with corrugated tin, and the metal front door was chained and padlocked. Leif canvassed the building and appeared on the other side. “All clear. ” He nodded to Caleb.
The boys started up the wraparound porch. Michael pried at the windows with his knife, wedging it under an old shingle. Kevin picked at the padlock but couldn’t unlock it.
“Let me try,” Arden said, jumping down from the porch banister.
Kevin smiled up at her as she worked the pick, freeing the lock with just a few slight turns of her wrist.
“Voilà!” The door to the storeroom swung open. The boys hooted and Aaron and Charlie wrestled each other inside. Even Leif smiled as we rushed ahead, flipping on the government generator. It was the same kind we’d had at School, the whir of it growing in those first few seconds, the lights turning on one by one, until the room swelled with a loud, steady hum.
“How’d you do that?” I asked, stunned.
“Just a little trick I learned in School. ” Arden shrugged playfully.
We surveyed the main floor, which had been cleared of furniture to make room for storage. Every spare space was packed with delicacies I’d never seen before: cans of pineapples, mangoes, and a meat spread called spam. Shelves were bolted to the walls of the living room, one whole row filled with gallons and gallons of water, in plastic jugs the color of the sky.
Michael rushed over to a cardboard box and pulled out white paper packages, tossing them around. “Mmmmm,” he said, dumping the sugary red substance into his mouth. “Fundip. ”
“Dig in,” Caleb called from the other side of the room. He had climbed up the side of the wooden shelves, pulling down a box of long, thin meat sticks, wrapped in yellow plastic. Aaron tucked a fistful into his jeans.
The gorging went on for over an hour, with each box, each plastic package, each carton, containing another delectable surprise. Leif passed out bags of Tootsie Rolls, chocolate chews that stuck to the roof of my mouth. Michael opened cans of beer—something I only knew about from the pages of James Joyce novels—and handed them out to the boys. I heard the faint voice of Teacher Agnes, chiding me. Alcohol was created to weaken a woman’s defenses, she’d said. But I took a quick swig nonetheless.
“HE WON’T STOP LOOKING AT YOU,” ARDEN SAID, LEANing against the wall. We’d settled into a corner to eat as much as we could. Scattered in front of us were cans of orange soda, thick, glossy pretzels, and jarred peaches. “I never believed anything Teacher Agnes said,” she offered, tilting her head slightly. “But maybe the old bag was right. There is some kind of insanity in his eyes. It’s like he wants to devour your soul or something. ”
I glanced up. Caleb was across the room, his eyes on me.
“Ew, Arden. ” I cringed. “Stop. ” But I was flooded with the memory of his lips against my forehead, my arms curled against his chest.
“You can ew all you want, but it’s true. What did you do to him in that room—I only stepped out for a second!” She nudged me hard in the side and I laughed, nervously.
“Look what I found!” Charlie called out from the old dining room. He pulled at a dusty beige cloth, removing it like a magician, to expose an old piano. He put his fingers on its yellowing keys and tapped out a few tinny notes.
I leaned back, listening as the chords echoed in the first floor of the house. It reminded me of the summers at School, when Pip and I took piano lessons with Teacher Sheila. I would sit on the bench, pressing down the chords for “Amazing Grace” while Pip spun around behind me, pirouetting with each verse.
I turned back to Arden, about to explain how Pip sometimes mimed each word, hunching over for “wretch” or cupping her ear for “sound,” but she was staring at the shelves in front of us, her mind somewhere else.
“What’s wrong?”
“Eve, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you . . . ” She rubbed her forehead with her hand. “Those things I said at School—the stories about my parents taking me to the theater, of Thanksgiving dinners and their apartment in the City . . . ” she whispered. “I made it up. ”
I sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
She stared at her feet. Strands of black hair fell in her face. “In a way it was true—I wasn’t like everyone at School,” she said. Her lips were red and chapped. “I was an orphan before the plague even happened. I never had parents, not even in my life before. ”
Charlie banged out a few more notes on the piano and Arden looked up at me, waiting for my reaction.
“So the maids who laid out your clothes in the morning, the sterling locket your mother had promised you after you finished learning your trade, the house with the pond in the front and the bathtub with gold clawed feet?” I recalled the stories Arden had taunted us with. “Those were all lies?”
Arden nodded. I was confused, then angry. So many nights I’d laid on my bed and cried, wishing I’d had what Arden had. I wished it was my mother waiting for me in the City, like a gift yet to be opened.
“How could you do that?” I asked.
Arden turned to the window and stared at her reflection in the glass. “I don’t know . . . ”
“Everyone was so jealous of you, and you—”
“I know!” Arden cried. “But you all talked of your parents and families. I didn’t even know what a family was. I had a grandfather, but he was nicer to his German shepherd than he was to me. It was a relief when he died. ”