A Time to Speak

  “How are Ash and Black?” I ask Elm. It would be nice to go to the albino village to visit them and see if they’ve been reading my Bible, but we just don’t have the time.

  “Black is leader now.” Elm stuffs a roast chicken leg in his mouth.

  “What happened to Alder?” What happened to the scary bald albino who seemed to take delight in chopping off Jude’s and my hands?

  Elm forces a huge swallow of chicken. “Dead.”

  I drop my corncob onto my plate. “Dead? When? What happened?”

  “On an early morning it was very windy. We went to the homage clearing and prayed to the trees. The wind blew a tree off its roots. It fell on Alder. We buried him at its stump.”

  “Poor Alder.”

  Elm shakes his head. “He was pleased with his death. We found him still breathing until sunset. Ash and Black were not happy. They said it was punishment because he prayed to trees and not to God.”

  A lump that has nothing to do with Christmas dinner lodges in my windpipe. Elm must notice my speechlessness, because he continues. “The reading you did when in our village changed many things. It made Ash and Black search for better balance between us and trees. They do not have atonement for their village. Your reading made me confused. I will talk to Willow about it.”

  “Are the other albinos in agreement with Ash and Black?”

  He releases a single laugh. “Many left, starting their own village. The albinos who stay are confused like I am. But I am Black’s brother. I will stay.”

  “We will get Willow back.”

  His eyes smolder. “We must. She is waiting for me.”

  We get the entire train to ourselves. Wind declares its presence through the cracks of the train walls, but not enough to keep us silent.

  I’m in a car with Unity people. We squish into two booths across the aisle from each other. Bench seats face each other with a table in between. Mother and Frenchie sit across the table from me and Solomon. Elm, Cap, Kaphtor, Madame, and Gabbie are across the aisle in their own booth. We all wear our Brawn suits under our regular clothing, prepared for anything. I wear Armor on top of Brawn, leaving the facemask still enclosed in the small matchbox on my chest. The suit is fully charged.

  Madame leans forward onto her table and gains my attention. “I understand why we’re destroying the Wall, but why are you so set against the Clocks, Parvin? I liked knowing I had thirty-one years left.”

  I fiddle with the loose sleeve hanging from my left arm, draped over my missing hand. “When I convinced myself the Clock was mine and not Reid’s, I wasted my time. I panicked at the end and it led to all of this—the Council having Jude’s invention, Reid’s death, all of us getting sent to Antarctica . . .”

  It’s hard admitting this is my fault, but I push on. “Then the Clock zeroed out and I was still alive. Now that the Clock is gone, I never know if today is my last day. I might die tomorrow. And that brings me to life.”

  Cap rolls his eyes. “What a cheering thought. I’m so glad they smashed mine. Now I can never be certain when I’ll keel over.”

  I twirl my loose left sleeve around my finger, letting the smooth material calm my nerves. “The promise of uncertainty changes how I live. It urges me to live . . . more, as if the very seconds prior to every sunset will be my last. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  I gain momentum as my thoughts spiral into the sky of clarity. “Life is like a game of tag, and you’re it. You’ll always be it, Cap. And you must chase it with all you’ve got. But the moment you stop chasing it, the game’s over and you’ve lost. You’ll always lose if you stop. What’s the point of having life if you won’t play?”

  He leans back so that Madame’s plump form blocks him from view, but I still hear his voice. “Thanks for the sermon.”

  Cap might be spouting sarcasm, but there’s something in everyone else’s faces—a relaxed . . . no, a tentative hope.

  Gabbie, of course, is filming.

  “Tomorrow was never promised to us. Never. God allowed us to put these Clocks in His place. He allowed us to turn them into idols and look what’s happened! We don’t live anymore. The government is turning us into livestock because of our Numbers. We labeled ourselves.”

  Solomon’s hand brushes mine, pulling my fingers away from the entangled sleeve. His touch sparks the memory of the most recent verse I read: “Where there is no guidance, a people falls.” Proverbs something. I breathe deep. I am their leader. “Now . . . God is rescuing us from our own handmade hell.”

  It’s too easy.

  That’s all I can think as I lie in my sleeper bunk. It’s morning, but I refuse to rise until my thoughts are settled. I’m not sure I can stomach breakfast before I rip down a thousand-foot Wall.

  I have a team dressed in superman suits, we’re only a few hours away from the Wall, and no one’s stopped us. The last time I was in this area of the West, the Council’s assassin had a needle in my neck and then took Jude’s life.

  What a different situation. Will this really work? Does the ease of it all mean God is blessing our choices or does it mean I’m missing something? What am I missing?

  I pull out The Daily Hemisphere and check for any updates.

  Nothing about me or destroying the Wall, but it probably wouldn’t be broadcasted through the news anyway.

  I find Solomon and Mother in the breakfast car. “Pancakes are my new favorite food.” Solomon slides a plate along the table to me, but I push it away.

  I lean forward as if sharing a secret. “I haven’t heard from Father yet. He’s had the video for two days. Do you think everything’s okay?”

  Mother’s features solidify to stone. “He’s probably being cautious.”

  Solomon watches me, but his gaze is glazed. I imagine the cells in his brain running around, piecing together the implications. Father could be caught. Father could be dead. The NAB could be destroyed. “Oliver is a silent man. From what I know of him, he’s probably safe. Send him another message and ask, but do it with a password-type question.”

  I slide my fingers along my hairline. “Okay. Do you really think people will come to the Wall to run through once we’ve destroyed it? What if the Council discovers what we’re doing and starts fighting our people?”

  Mother folds up a pancake and takes a bite. “You’re getting distracted.”

  “Shouldn’t I be prepared for anything?”

  Solomon scans the food car. “Maybe we should talk to the others.”

  I look out the window and watch the stiff, wintered terrain zip by. “Good idea.”

  Solomon stands. “The conductress said we’re only five or six hours from the Wall. Let’s get a group together to talk this over.” He places a hand on my shoulder. “Eat something, then let’s meet in the same car we were in yesterday.”

  For a strange moment, I don’t want him to leave. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to do anything but sit with him and enjoy a moment of us. Maybe he’s feeling something, too, because he doesn’t immediately walk away.

  I look into his eyes and think about the man I’ve come to know. Calm, strong, and willing to sacrifice so much for the sake of shalom. What would I have done if this Enforcer had never come to Unity Village?

  “You were amazing yesterday.” His smile warms me. “Talking to everyone about the Clocks.”

  I bite my lip and allow a crooked smile. “Only because I have someone else leading me.”

  “I’m glad you do.”

  My nerves evaporate at the reminder of God’s leadership. Just keep trusting that He will work out the details. He’s pro shalom, even more than we are. “See you in a minute.”

  “Tally ho.” He steps out of our car, crossing into the next. For a moment, I get a whiff of blueberry ink and thatch. Then a burst of lemon–

  That’s when the Ivanhoe Independent exp
lodes.

  36

  Roaring. Flying. I am a rag doll on fire.

  Crumpled metal swirls around me, swung by a beast of flame. I’m somewhere over it all. In the sky. But there is no orientation. No understanding until I slam into the ground and all goes black for a moment.

  When I open my eyes next, it’s to see the engine of the Ivanhoe Independent tumbling through the air above me. Its shadow washes over me.

  Then I am crushed.

  Black. Pressure.

  But I am not dead. My Armor suit activated, sending the suit mask over my face—nothing else could have kept my frail body in once piece.

  My head pulses like an overfilled balloon. The Ivanhoe Independent is gone. Yellow-painted shrapnel. Giant confetti scattered on the icy ground.

  I push a leg against the train engine. It takes a small groan, but my knee lifts the engine off the ground, freeing me. It’s like elevating a few two-by-fours.

  Wilbur Sherrod and his suits saved my life.

  I get my other foot on the underside of the engine, then kick. It rolls off me, balancing back on its wheels. I don’t want to kick too hard in case it tumbles onto someone else I don’t see.

  I clamber to my feet and press the button to turn off my Armor suit so I that don’t use all its juice—thank heavens for its automatic activation. Then I search.

  “Solomon?” I spin on my heel. “Mother?”

  The first thing I find is a limb. My eyes pass over it and I don’t let them return. I won’t guess from the look of a bloodied hand which of my people it belongs to.

  Wails and cries surround me. Who do I go to first? A woman screams from my left. “Mother!” I run that way. It’s not her. Another body runs from the other direction—one in a silver suit and rags of singed clothing hanging off his shoulders.

  Solomon.

  He’s alive!

  He meets my eyes, but we don’t go to each other. We run to the mangled train pieces crushing other people. I haul one off a woman from Nether Town. Her chest is caved in and she holds my hand tight until her muscles fail and breath leaves her.

  Blood. Again. Marking my passage in the West.

  I close her eyes.

  I find Solomon with Cap and Elm at a sleeper car. Only half the car remains, but the cushions and mattresses must have saved them. Blood cakes Elm’s choppy white hair, but Cap is relatively unharmed. Six other people from our group aren’t so lucky.

  They’re dead.

  All around us, people are dead.

  “We have to get what explosives are left,” Solomon pants. “Then we need to get out of here. If the attack came from the Council, Enforcers might be coming any minute to finish the job.”

  “I have to find Mother!” Each breath that enters my lungs without the knowledge of her safety scrapes away my hope and my heart. As I search among dead bodies, confused guilt laps against my mind.

  I should have known.

  I should have known the Council wouldn’t let us get to the Wall. Somehow Skelley knew we were coming. This is my fault. “Mother? Mother!” Is she flattened somewhere under a piece of train? Dying alone? Already dead?

  I’m the one to find Madame and I wish I wasn’t. She’s lying on one of the sleeping bunks ripped from its car, sobbing into her hands. Her very bloody hands.

  “Are you injured?” I sit beside her and the bunk teeters for a moment. That’s when I see the metal shrapnel sticking out of her chest, like an arrow from a fallen knight.

  She looks up. “I deserve it. Angelique was crushed—crushed—under all that . . . metal. And she . . . hates me. Now I’m dying. ”

  Frenchie? Dead?

  “I forced her . . . to work for me. She didn’t have a Clock and I knew . . . in the future . . . she’d thank me for giving her . . . a job. All . . . High-City employers had servants. It was . . . finally my chance to step up . . . in society.”

  Now’s not the time to tell her that using people is a poor technique.

  “Then my city found out Angelique didn’t have a Clock. I was sent to Unity Village.” She wipes her eyes with the palms of her hands and then toys with the metal stuck in her body, as if it’s merely a piece of jewelry that’s killing her. “Did you know that . . . I never even had my . . . own . . . Clock?” She shakes her head, her eyes turning vacant. “I got one . . . from the black market. I’ve been . . . a Radical . . . my whole life.”

  What do I say? I’m sorry, sounds so trite. She doesn’t strike me as the type of person who’d appreciate empty words. “Madame, I—”

  She gasps and clutches my shoulder. She shudders, then stills.

  “Madame?”

  Nothing. She’s dead.

  I know dead.

  I don’t cry and I don’t know why I feel like I ought to cry over her. No one else will. I press the button on the collar of her Brawn suit. It shrinks to matchbox size and I pocket it. Then I cover her with a torn sheet.

  Kaphtor stumbles around a corkscrewed railroad tie with a body in his arms. Frenchie. “What do I do?” He looks at her face. “She’s breathing, but something’s wrong.”

  She’s alive! I direct him to a clear spot. “Set her on the ground.” Mother would know what to do. Where is she?

  Please God. Don’t let her be dead.

  Kaphtor lowers Frenchie to the dirt, despite the blood gushing from his calf, and grips her pale hand tight. I don’t see blood on her, which concerns me. Her injury is internal.

  “Parvin!” Solomon runs toward us. He arrives, breathing hard, and dumps two packs of explosives on the ground. Only now do I notice the bruise on the side of his head.

  His voice is low, careful. “I found your mother.”

  I choke. “No.”

  He leads me by the hand to an enormous pile of twisted metal. “I pulled her out.”

  There she is, looking smaller and more fragile than ever. Most of her full brown hair is gone—singed away from her head. Her scalp is burned and blackened. Enormous blisters cover her face and skin curls back from her cheeks. She’s barely recognizable.

  “No!” I grope for her hand and hold it to my chest, ignoring the bleeding. “I can’t lose her!”

  Solomon kneels and puts an arm around me. “I think she’s still alive, but I don’t know what we can do for her.”

  “We will go to my village.” Elm stands behind us. “Ash can heal.”

  I look around. More people stumble toward Frenchie and Kaphtor. Not many. Who else has died? “How far away is your village?”

  “We will get there in evening.” Elm reaches down and picks Mother up. Her head lolls back and a crack in her neck skin releases a fresh flow of blood.

  “Be careful!” I remove my first layer of clothing and bandage Mother’s burns as best I can. I follow Elm to the small group of survivors.

  “Those with Brawn suits will carry the wounded and explosives.” Kaphtor cradles Frenchie. He presses a button by the collar and her suit shrinks into a matchbox, leaving behind her underclothes. He removes his coat and drapes it over her, tossing her Brawn suit to someone else.

  “There aren’t enough suits.” Solomon scans the row of gathered wounded. “I will go without a suit as long as I can.” Leaving no room for argument, he presses the detract button at his collar and gives it to a young boy. He now wears only ragged pants held up by his belt. All the other clothing was torn or ripped off him. A gash across his chest bleeds, but it’s not too deep.

  He catches me watching him. “I’ll be fine.”

  My throat closes. “But . . . Mother.”

  Solomon pulls me into a hug.

  “Don’t tell me she’ll be okay unless you’re sure,” I cry into his chest.

  “I’ll pray.” His voice breaks and his arms squeeze me.

  I want him to hold me tighter. Tighter. Until I can’t feel an
ything more. Squeeze out the emotions. “Me, too.”

  “Well, I won’t.” Cap limps into view with two people following him. They each carry packs of explosives. “This is all that’s left.”

  “Cap!” Kaphtor stares at him. “You are unharmed?”

  “I guess.”

  Solomon and I stare at the eight packs of explosives. Eight packs left . . . out of fifty.

  “Do a quick sweep for other survivors,” Solomon tells the others. “Then we go.”

  Only now do I notice the very edge of the Wall peeking through the tree-spotted horizon. We’re so close.

  Someone finds Gabbie. She’s limping, and half her black hair is burned away. She drags three travel packs behind her—mine, Solomon’s, and hers. Her face is stained with tear streaks. “Did you see the other dead people?”

  I nod.

  “There were pieces of humans everywhere—”

  “Gabbie.” Solomon’s sharp tone cuts her off. “We’re leaving. Are you able to walk on your own?”

  She sniffs hard. “I think so. Let me just take a quick emotigraph.” She rummages in her shoulder pack.

  “Why would you want an emotigraph of this place?” Cap’s glare is hotter than the flames licking at the train wreckage.

  Gabbie raises an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you even know what an emotigraph is.”

  Cap turns bright red. I gather both Solomon’s and my packs, leaving Solomon’s arms free to carry a wounded young girl. I hand Madame’s shrunken suit to someone else. It doesn’t fit the man perfectly, but the suits are made to adapt.

  “Is this all of us?”

  Solomon’s head hangs low. “I think so.”

  Twelve.

  Twelve of us survived . . . out of fifty. Three are badly wounded.

  Those of us with suits pick up bags and supplies. I loop Solomon’s pack and one explosive pack over my shoulders and my personal pack on my front. Then we begin the trudge toward the Wall, leaving a Hansel-and-Gretel blood trail to mark our passage.

  Elm and I take the lead. It takes every ounce of willpower to keep my spine straight and my chin high. Meanwhile, my emotions are curled in a corner, sobbing.