The Always War

  “—have to keep him medicated,” a man was saying, just on the other side of the door.

  “He doesn’t like the medication,” a woman’s querulous voice complained. Tessa knew this was Mrs. Thrall. “He says it makes it hard to think.”

  “Some people are better off not thinking,” the man replied.

  And then the door began to creak open, and Tessa scurried past it. She yanked her key out, rushing to get into her own apartment before anyone saw her.

  Why did it matter?

  Tessa didn’t know. But as soon as she got the door open and rushed inside, she shoved it shut and stood there breathing hard, her back against the hard wood.

  That night Tessa lay in bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Her room was small; her bed was narrow. Years ago she’d gotten into the habit of pressing her head against the wall and sprawling diagonally across the mattress, so she could trick herself into believing she had more space than she really did. But now something kept hitting against the other side of the wall.

  Tap-tap-tap-thump-thump-thump-tap-tap-tap.

  And again.

  Tap-tap-tap-thump-thump-thump-tap-tap-tap.

  And again.

  Tessa remembered whose apartment lay on the other side of the wall.

  Tap-tap-tap-thump-thump-thump-tap-tap-tap.

  It’s just some machine, Tessa told herself. Maybe Gideon Thrall’s honor came with some practical benefit. A washer. A dryer. An automatic vacuum.

  But the tapping and thumping was not quite precise enough to be mechanical. Tessa could hear the very human hesitation between the taps and thumps.

  He’s listening to music, Tessa told herself. Tapping his foot. Maybe it’s not even Gideon. Maybe it’s his mother.

  Tessa couldn’t fit the rhythm of the tapping and thumping into any song she’d ever heard. Maybe it was some other kind of rhythm, some kind of code.

  Tessa got up and turned on the light. She reached to fire up the ancient laptop computer that sat on her desk, then stopped herself. The kids at school said anything you searched for online left tracks. It could always be traced back to you.

  Tessa reached instead for the even more ancient encyclopedia set that had come from her grandparents’ apartment when they died. Tessa’s mother had wanted to throw the books away, but Tessa had rescued them. Some of the volumes were missing, but fortunately the C and M and S books were in the stack.

  Code.

  Morse code.

  SOS.

  Tessa found descriptions of dots and dashes, tapped out in sets of three. Dots and dashes—taps and thumps. It had to be the same.

  Gideon Thrall, the biggest hero in the country, was begging for help.

  CHAPTER

  4

  How to get past Mrs. Thrall?

  That was Tessa’s dilemma. She imagined herself picking locks or climbing ropes strung between her window and the window next door. But every scenario she could dream up seemed like it would end the same way: in a confrontation with Mrs. Thrall, rather than Gideon’s rescue.

  Tessa lay awake far into the night trying to come up with a workable plan. Long after the thumping and tapping stopped, it occurred to her that she could have studied the Morse code symbols a little longer and come up with a coded reply: What do you need? maybe, or, How can I help? She tapped the wall once, experimentally, but there was no response. She got out the M encyclopedia again and stared at the Morse code key. She thought about writing out a message she could tap and thump in the morning, but each letter was so complicated. Even if she managed to make Gideon understand her, what would she do if he started desperately tapping and thumping out a lengthy answer? She’d never be able to follow it—and he’d probably be caught.

  No, there had to be some other way….

  She fell asleep. And though she wasn’t aware of any dreams, she woke up in the morning thinking about flowers.

  He’s a hero. Surely Mrs. Thrall wouldn’t be surprised to see some delivery person bringing flowers from an admirer—surely he’s gotten lots of flowers before.

  It was worth a try.

  Tessa herself couldn’t afford to buy any flowers—they were a luxury, rarely grown because they were a distraction from the war effort. But she’d seen goldenrod and milkweed growing in the dirt piles behind the apartment, the same spot where she and Gideon had (maybe) once made mud pies. If Tessa picked some of the weeds and wrapped them in paper so only a leaf or two showed—well, wasn’t there at least a chance that it would fool Mrs. Thrall?

  Tessa crept out into the chilly morning air. It was a Saturday, but weekend workers streamed down the sidewalk, headed for their jobs. All the faces she saw were gray and worn and weary, as if the people had long ago given up any hope of a better life.

  Oh, please, Gideon, Tessa thought. That’s why we needed a hero.

  She darted around the building, stepping from one clump of ugly, spiky grass to another. Dew clung to a spiderweb binding several of the taller weeds together, and Tessa wished she could carry that up to Gideon too.

  It’s so beautiful—wouldn’t he see the beauty in it? Tessa wondered.

  The kids at school never saw things the same way as Tessa; why did she think that Gideon might? And, anyhow, she wasn’t supposed to be finding anything beautiful. She just needed to trick Mrs. Thrall.

  Tessa hacked at the plants before her. When she had a big enough bundle to make a convincing bouquet, she went back upstairs to her apartment and wrapped the whole thing in paper. And then, before she lost her nerve, she knocked at the Thralls’ door.

  “Florist delivery!” Tessa called out.

  The door creaked open.

  Mrs. Thrall stood before her in a deep purple robe, and for a moment Tessa lost herself staring. The robe was new. Where could you buy new things anymore?

  “Yes?” Mrs. Thrall said.

  Tessa forced herself to stop staring at the robe. She lifted her gaze to Mrs. Thrall’s face.

  “These are, uh, flowers to be delivered to Lieutenant-Pilot Gideon Thrall,” Tessa said. She started to hold them out to Mrs. Thrall, then caught herself. She clutched the bundle of weeds tighter to her chest. “I have orders to deliver them directly into his hands,” she added.

  Mrs. Thrall frowned. The lines around her eyes were etched much deeper than Tessa would have expected. But Tessa had only ever seen her from afar. It wasn’t surprising that Mrs. Thrall looked different close up.

  “Your ‘orders’ are to see him face to face, then,” Mrs. Thrall said in a mocking voice.

  Tessa’s heart sank.

  She sees right through me, Tessa thought. She knows I’m lying.

  But Mrs. Thrall didn’t slam the door in her face. For a moment she just stood there silently, watching Tessa. Tessa was sure Mrs. Thrall was noticing Tessa’s ratty sweater, her threadbare jeans, the way her dark hair curled in all the wrong directions. Tessa remembered how, even before Gideon went off to the academy—How old was he then? Eight? Ten?—Mrs. Thrall always looked so disapprovingly at girls around the neighborhood who so much as glanced at Gideon. She had a narrowed-eyes glare that all but spoke: Oh, no. You’re not good enough for my son.

  She did this even to pretty girls, girls whose families had money—or, at least, as much money as anyone had in Waterford City.

  Tessa wasn’t all that pretty, and her family had less money than just about everyone they knew. And yet suddenly Mrs. Thrall took a step back.

  “Come in,” she said.

  “I can?” Tessa asked incredulously. “I mean—thank you.”

  She stepped into the Thralls’ apartment, and Mrs. Thrall closed the door behind her. Immediately something changed in Mrs. Thrall’s expression, as if she’d put on a mask.

  Or taken one off.

  “Gideon’s room is over there,” Mrs. Thrall said, pointing. Her face sagged, as if keeping up appearances was beyond her now. She didn’t look like the haughty mother of the hero anymore. She just looked old—old and weary and despairing. r />
  Tessa realized she’d been thinking about everything wrong. Mrs. Thrall wasn’t the enemy. She wasn’t the obstacle Tessa needed to worry about.

  But what was Gideon’s problem?

  “Um, is he …,” Tessa began.

  “Just go in there!” Mrs. Thrall commanded. “You can see for yourself!”

  Mrs. Thrall turned her head away, but not before Tessa saw tears sparkling in the woman’s eyes. There was a remnant of her old glare in her expression—You’re not good enough; no one’s worthy of my Gideon. In a flash Tessa understood something she didn’t want to understand, something ugly. Mrs. Thrall did think Tessa was one of those girls who threw themselves at boys. She hated Tessa. But she was willing to let Tessa in to see Gideon anyhow, because, because …

  Tessa’s understanding faltered.

  “I’m not like that,” she said, defending herself.

  The disgust in Mrs. Thrall’s expression took over.

  “You brought him flowers, didn’t you?” she sneered. She might as well have said, You brought him weeds. You’re a weed yourself. Trash.

  Tessa stood up straight. She wanted so badly to say, He asked me to come. He asked for me.

  But it wasn’t quite true. Gideon couldn’t have known that Tessa lay on the other side of his wall last night. He didn’t even know her. Even if they had played together as little kids—even if that mud-pie picture of them together were real, not something Tessa’s mother had faked—then Gideon probably didn’t remember it any better than Tessa did.

  He certainly hadn’t recognized Tessa back at the auditorium.

  But he was trying to signal someone last night, Tessa thought. Who? Why?

  She looked at the door into Gideon’s room, which was closed tight. The door was dark and scarred, as if someone had attacked it with a knife. Lots of doors in the apartment building looked like that, but the scars made Tessa hesitate. She remembered the flat, expressionless tone in Gideon’s voice when he’d told her, All I did was kill people. She shivered.

  “He wouldn’t …,” she began. Was she going to say, “hurt me”? “Kill me”? About Gideon Thrall? The biggest hero in Waterford City history?

  Mrs. Thrall recoiled.

  “He doesn’t even get out of bed,” she snarled.

  Mrs. Thrall reached past Tessa to twist the doorknob and push the door open. And then she shoved Tessa forward and shut the door behind her.

  Trapping Tessa in Gideon’s room.

  CHAPTER

  5

  The room was dark.

  In the time it took Tessa’s eyes to adjust, she had to fight down panic: What could be wrong with Gideon? What’s wrong with Mrs. Thrall? Why do I feel like I’m being … sacrificed?

  And then Tessa could see ordinary objects around her: a desk. A chair. A bed. Gideon’s form lay sprawled across the bed as if he’d fallen there—fallen from some great height, maybe, in a way that left him too broken to get back up.

  Tessa remembered that she’d come there hoping to help.

  “Um, hello?” she said, in a near whisper. “Your mother said it was okay for me to come in. And, uh …”

  She let her voice trail off, because it didn’t seem that Gideon could hear her. Maybe he was asleep.

  Maybe he was dead.

  Why hadn’t she figured out a way to answer his call for help sooner?

  Gideon turned over.

  “You saw my mother,” he murmured, the words little more than breaths. “Did you see the blood on her robe?”

  Blood? Tessa thought.

  “N-no,” she said, stuttering in her confusion. “Is she hurt? Or—are you?”

  She wasn’t sure if she should turn around to go help Mrs. Thrall or step closer to Gideon to help him—or just flat out run, to save herself. But Gideon was opening his mouth to talk again, and she had to know what he was going to say.

  “They gave her that robe,” Gideon said. “Because of me. Because of what I did. It’s made of blood. Blood and bones and death …”

  His voice trailed off. He was staring up at the ceiling—the blank, bland, ordinary ceiling—but his face contorted as if he were watching some unspeakable horror.

  “I brought you flowers,” Tessa said, and it was ridiculous; this wasn’t what you said to someone who looked as anguished as Gideon. But she felt like she had to get him to look away from that ceiling, to stop him from screaming or wailing or whatever he was about to do. (Murdering someone? No, no, don’t think that, she commanded herself.)

  Tessa looked down at the bundled greenery in her arms. The weeds were already wilting.

  “Or, actually, they’re not exactly flowers,” Tessa said, because she couldn’t stop herself from talking. “Not what most people would call flowers. That was just my excuse to get in. I heard your SOS last night. Your Morse code. Your—is there something I can do to help?”

  Now, that did seem to be the right thing to say. But at first it didn’t make any difference. Then Gideon began turning his head, an excruciatingly slow motion. And even when he was gazing toward Tessa, he couldn’t seem to focus his eyes on her, standing right there, rather than whatever he thought he saw beyond her.

  “You’re the girl from the auditorium,” he finally said, blinking.

  In spite of everything Tessa felt a tingle of pleasure: He remembers me! The handsome, heroic, amazing Gideon Thrall remembers me!

  “Yes. I live next door,” she said, pointing to the wall behind him. Somehow it seemed like she was trying to brag again. Like she was her mother, showing around a picture that was probably faked. Trying for some reflected glory she didn’t deserve. “That’s how I heard you last night.”

  Gideon lifted his head from his pillow. He squinted. He was trying so hard to see her.

  Tessa felt honored.

  “I need a computer,” Gideon said. His head fell back against the pillow, as if the exertion of looking at Tessa had been too much for him. “They won’t let me have a computer.”

  “I have a computer,” Tessa offered. “I can run and get it—”

  “No!” Gideon thundered. He hit his fist against the wall, and for a moment Tessa feared that he was trying to break it down. He could punch a hole in it and reach into Tessa’s room and take whatever he wanted that belonged to her. Would she let him? Would she have to? Was that what she’d set in motion, coming here?

  All this flashed through Tessa’s mind even as Gideon’s fist opened and his hand slid helplessly down the wall.

  “They’d see you,” Gideon whispered. He was staring at the ceiling again. “They watch.”

  “Who?” Tessa asked.

  “You know,” Gideon whispered.

  Tessa didn’t think she did. Clearly, he didn’t mean Mrs. Thrall. And as far as Tessa knew, there wasn’t a Mr. Thrall, or he’d died or vanished before Gideon was born.

  Then she remembered how everybody had watched Gideon as he stood up on the stage. People always watched someone like Gideon.

  Someone like Tessa—not so much.

  “I’ll hide the computer,” Tessa told Gideon, trying to placate him. “Nobody will see me bringing it over here. And—I’ll tell your mother I’m just getting a vase.”

  Gideon looked at her again, studying her face, blinking back whatever specters had hidden her from him before.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Tessa felt like she’d just passed some test. She’d pleased him. He liked her. He approved. This made her feel so buoyant that she pushed open the door with great confidence.

  Mrs. Thrall was sitting on the opposite side of the living room, as far away as possible. Her face had been taken over with sour disapproval.

  “I need a vase for the flowers,” Tessa said with great dignity. “I’ll be right back.”

  She left the door of the Thralls’ apartment cracked slightly, so she wouldn’t have to rely on Mrs. Thrall to let her back in. She rushed into her own apartment, into her own room, feeling glad that her parents weren’t anywhere in sight. The
y were probably still sleeping off the disappointments of last night, of every night of their lives.

  They might not awaken all day.

  Not me, Tessa thought. I won’t be like them.

  She tucked her small flip-up computer under the front of her shirt and grabbed the first jar she could find from the kitchen.

  Back in the hallway she got prickles at the back of her neck. Somehow she did feel like she was being watched now, like someone was paying very close attention to what she was doing.

  The hallway was empty.

  I’m a girl taking a vase for flowers to a friend, she told herself. Who would care about that?

  She kept her arms crossed against her stomach, holding the computer in place. But surely, if anyone was watching, it would just look like she was cold.

  She nudged open the door back into the Thralls’ apartment. Mrs. Thrall’s expression, if anything, had grown even more disapproving while Tessa was away. Tessa just brushed past her and went into Gideon’s room.

  He was sitting up.

  Sitting up!

  Quickly Tessa pulled the door shut.

  “Do you have it?” Gideon asked.

  So that’s how his voice sounds with some hope in it, Tessa thought. He seemed like a new person, as radiant in the dim room as he’d looked all those weeks ago onstage, in the spotlight. It was amazing how hope could transform even messed-up hair and an unshaven face and unwashed, rumpled clothes into something as stunning as a hero in a crisp uniform.

  “Here,” Tessa said, pulling the computer from beneath her shirt. She caught her breath. She’d been holding the computer against her bare skin, and now he was touching the computer, and surely he could feel how her skin had warmed the cold metal….

  Gideon flipped the computer over and tore off the bottom panel. He began yanking out wires.

  “Hey!” Tessa protested. “Stop that! You didn’t say you were going to break it!”

  She put her hand over his, trying to pull it back.

  “I’m not breaking anything,” Gideon said. “I’m masking it. So no one can trace my keystrokes.”

  Tessa stopped pulling on his hand.