He says, “You think you’re in charge down here, don’t you?”
My eyebrows arch in surprise.
Zachariah smiles. “You’re not.”
Scratch that. He doesn’t seem young anymore. And it’s not that there’s malice in him. It’s audacity. An arrogance he could hardly be expected to have avoided, growing up in the place he did.
I tell him simply, “I know exactly who’s really in charge, and I’ll follow her until my corpse has become the dust that a world of free, uncured people walk upon.”
*
I find Josi by Shadow’s bedside and sit with her for a while. The poor guy looks pretty ragged. He’s about half the weight he used to be and his skin has a sallow tinge. I feel like we’re forever waiting at someone’s bedside. Forever burying our dead.
“Whatever you want to do with Zachariah, we’ll do,” I tell her softly.
Gently she reaches for my cheek. Smiles with her eyes. “We protect these kids. I think that matters more than anything. More than getting out of the tunnels or destroying the regime. I think it has to matter more.”
“And you think he’s a kid who needs protection?”
Josi bites her lip and turns back to Shadow. Sometimes a darkness falls over her and she goes missing in the past. I hate feeling like I can’t follow her back there, can’t even grab her hand to help her return. She murmurs, “Zachariah looks like I used to, don’t you think? When violence was the only thing I’d come to expect from people?”
I stroke her hair and we sit in silence for a while. “Can I take you somewhere?”
“What about Shadow?”
“We won’t be long, I promise.”
*
I leave her at the armory to get us some weapons while I check the tech room for the surveillance camera I set up. It looks clear. Teddy’s in here, scrolling through a security feed of somewhere in the city. Ensconced in the flickering blue light, he hardly notices me.
“Hey, kid, can you do me a favor?”
“As long as it’s difficult. I’m bored out of my mind.”
“No such luck, it’s super easy.”
Once I have him set up I return to find Josi waiting at one of the cages. She passes me two guns, a knife and a belt of ammunition clips. She’s similarly armed. We climb up a ladder and into a new set of tunnels. These ones snake farther out and under the city wall. We follow them, turning left if we hear signs of Furies to the right, or vice versa. Eventually we snake our way into the beyond and emerge in the mouth of a tunnel that protrudes out the side of a cliff-face. We stand at its edge and look at the view.
Before us stretches the ocean. The sun has set and the sky is impossibly filled with stars. So many they’re dazzling, a sparkling velvet roof to the world, and in its midst a brilliant silver full moon.
“Oh my god,” Josi breathes at the sight. “Luke …”
“Swim?”
“Is that a trick question?”
We attach ropes and start climbing them down the crumbling cliff.
“Is it safe out here?”
“I’ve spent the last five weeks setting up security and watching for signs that Furies come anywhere near here, and as far as I can see they haven’t. Plus I have Teddy on surveillance.”
“So he’ll be watching us swim?”
“Er … yes. But he’s under strict instructions not to perve.”
She laughs. “Gross.”
We make it to the sand and run to the water’s edge. Hopping while wrenching my boots off, I nearly fall on my ass. The sand is cool and coarse between my toes. It reminds me of a tiny beach on the opposite coast of the continent, the beach that helped me bring Josi back to life. The ocean, I think, is the one thing that has the power to save her from her depression, the never-ending plight of it. And maybe it saves her from more than that, too, from the weight of the tunnel walls and the clarity of her memories and the blood staining both our hands and from everything, everything she needs saving from.
I take off all my clothes and Josi laughs again. “What?”
“The poor kid’ll have a heart attack.”
“Only if you get naked too. Go on. Give him a thrill.”
Teddy can’t really see us – we’d just be black dots, given how far away the camera is – but I don’t tell Josi that. She strips off in a rush and pelts into the water with a shrill gasp of delight.
I follow and surprisingly the water isn’t as cold as it looks. The air above is so frigid that sinking below the surface is actually a relief. I hold my breath and stay under as long as I can. The sea is calm and the small waves do nothing but gently rock me. When I rise for air I see Josi floating on her back. The water’s so salty it’s easy. In the dark she’s a silhouette. A tiny shape in the wide expanse of sea. Her own shadow.
“Another me has gills and scales,” she murmurs. “She breathes salt.”
I float on my back too and try to make shapes in the stars. I don’t know any constellations, not one, but I still like the idea that there are secret stories in the spaces between them.
“Who loves the scaly, gilled you?”
“The scaly, gilled you,” she says as though it’s obvious, which I suppose it is.
We lie there thinking about these strange, creaturely versions of us. To me they sound monstrous but she’s always seen the beauty in monstrousness.
Her long black locks of hair reach out in snakelike tendrils. I swim closer and let the tips of my fingers brush against their ends. My hand feels less stiff in the water, less distractingly sore. She talks so often of living in the sea and for the first time I can imagine enjoying it. If it stayed like this always, gentle and dark and soothing, then I might love it. If it stayed just me and her, I might die for it.
“Josi?”
“Mmm?”
“I gotta ask you something.”
She sits up and treads water. We aren’t touching but she’s close enough that I can make out her face in the moonlight. “You sound ominous.”
“Hopefully not. I just …” I let out a breath. I’ve been thinking about this for so long that I can’t believe I’m finally here, that I’ve reached this point without any idea of what I’m going to say. “I keep thinking about the moment I first saw you.”
“You mean when you were stalking me like a total creeper?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So when was that?”
“Well, my memories don’t normally have the clarity of yours. But I remember this one so clearly it’s weird. I was sitting on this uncomfortable low wall enjoying a cigarette before you so cruelly made me give them up. I was really annoyed with you for just being you, basically. I was so annoyed by the watch op. I’d been waiting for you to come home for hours—”
“Tardy old me.”
“And then you appeared. There were so many drones around that I only caught a glimpse of you at first. I thought I might not recognize you from your picture but I did. I knew you straight away. You were wearing ripped stockings and boots and your hair was in this messy braid and you wore a hoodie that was about three sizes too big for you. You were so thin. You pushed your way out of the crowd and plunged across the busy street and walked straight into my line of sight and you had this look on your face, and you were just barely mouthing something, like maybe you were singing under your breath or reading a book from your memory or something crazy. And you were strange and beautiful and awkward. And I felt …” I stop because I can’t find the words. My chest is so swollen, the sky so enormous.
“Luke, you’re embarrassing me.”
“Just listen. It was like I … I was … I just knew, Jose. I never knew I’d been waiting but I knew then. I thought here she is.”
She smiles but I can tell she feels awkward about being complimented, or maybe just about the sentiment. I laugh a little, reaching for her waist and pulling her against me. Our bodies are evolutionary triumphs, in this moment they’re as wondrously creaturely as our monstrous counterparts. “I’m n
early done,” I assure her softly.
“There’s more?”
“Marry me.”
She stares at me. It’s so quiet in this infinite night. Just the waves crashing on the shore behind us and the beat of our pulses. I think, abruptly, of my brother.
“Life’s so short,” I murmur. “Let’s get married, Josi.”
I could watch the world burn if I had to; I’ve always known it. But I could never leave her. There are things that matter and then there is Josephine.
For the first time in my life I think she might feel the same way.
Because she says, “Of course,” and I taste her salty lips.
Chapter 8
August 1st, 2046
Luke
The spade is giving me blisters. I sit back on the edge of my hole and survey it. It’s about three feet deep and four wide. It takes a considerable amount of time to dig a hole this big; I’m pretty proud of myself. Within it the earth is rich and a little bit moist, but it’s too dark to see much else. I imagine wriggling worms and roots of trees and maybe ancient fossils and pieces of buried treasure. Anything could be down here. There could be a body down here, for all I know.
Dave’s lying behind me, plucking at the strings of his guitar. He’s too good at it to be normal, not good enough to be special, as he puts it. He’s always plucking the same tune, over and over as though it’s somehow engraved in the pads of his fingers. I’m sick to death of it.
“Don’t you wanna help?” I ask.
Dave snorts in that dismissive way of his. I don’t really get how he can be so content not to know things, things like what lives beneath us, what’s under this grass, this earth, what’s deep within it. Doesn’t he ever want to find anything? I do like that he’s keeping me company, though. The backyard’s a little too big to be entirely comfortable at night. And maybe he finds things of his own in the strings of his guitar. That’s what Dad says, anyway.
“Luke!”
Uh oh. It’s the voice of an insane person.
I drop the spade in the hole and shoot to my feet. Mom is storming across the lawn and she looks mad. Like, proper mad.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demands.
I blink and look around at the dozen or so holes in the backyard, thinking it’s rather obvious what I’m doing. “Digging.”
“I can see that. The implied question was why?”
I shrug. “To find something.”
“Such as?”
“Anything. There’s bound to be something under here, right?”
She stares at me with that crazy look in her eyes. Even though I’m used to it, it’s still a pretty freaky look. “He’s dug up the whole damn garden! Why didn’t you stop him?” she asks Dave.
“Stop him?” my brother repeats like she’s spoken another language.
Mom shakes her head and pinches my ear to get me back inside. “In the bath. You’re filthy. And then we’re going to have a serious discussion about why you feel it’s necessary to be the most badly behaved nine-year-old on the planet.”
*
August 28th, 2046
Luke
I dump the freshly removed alternator on my bedroom floor and drag Dad’s toolbox over. With a screwdriver I start taking the pieces of metal apart, unscrewing all the little nuts and screws, prying the cylinder thingy off. I pinch my little finger but after I suck on it, it stops stinging. I have to get it completely apart. I have to get at what’s inside so I can see how it works. It’s important that I know how it works, because this lump of metal moves a car.
The back door slams shut and I hear footsteps.
Uh oh.
“Claire?” I hear Dad call.
“Bedroom!”
Dad’s footsteps go past my room to reach his and I hold my breath the whole time, praying he won’t look in here.
The walls in our house are as thin as paper, Dave says, so I can hear their conversation easily.
“The alternator’s gone from my car!” Dad announces quizzically.
“What?”
“It’s vanished.”
There’s a pause and I realize I’ve gotten engine grease all over the carpet. That’s when Mom screams. “LUKE!”
*
October 3rd, 2046
Luke
Let it be known that Dave is an excellent model airplane flyer. He doesn’t hit anything, he just zooms smoothly through the air, looping and spinning and avoiding all manner of obstacle. But where’s the fun in that?
“Can I have a go?” I ask for the fifth time.
He sighs and hands the controller over. If I nag him enough he usually gives in. He’s pretty good like that. The plane dips wildly as I struggle to work the buttons and then it swoops back into the sky.
I spy a tree. There are plenty of trees in our backyard, but the one I have my eye on is a particularly good one. Nice and solid, big enough to do considerable damage.
I angle the plane straight at the tree and press the accelerator.
“Careful!” Dave shouts, just as the plane smashes into the trunk.
Its pieces fall fabulously, no longer attached to each other but free to flutter in spectacular arcs. I drop the controller and sprint to the wreckage.
“Luke!” Dave yells in frustration. “This is why I didn’t want you to have a turn!”
I’m too busy gathering the parts and peering inside them. I don’t get what his problem is – the plane is way more interesting now that you can see how it works.
Mom inevitably arrives, alerted by Dave’s big mouth. I’m dragged inside by the ear with a lot of scolding about how expensive that plane was and how it was Dave’s birthday present and not everything is mine to destroy and lots of other things like that which are probably totally true and I do start to feel really bad that I wrecked something of Dave’s but I just don’t really get what the problem is. It’s not like I tried to stop him from playing with the pieces – I’d gladly share them with him. We could have rebuilt the plane together, once we’d figured out how.
Mom puts me in front of the TV and tells me that if I move she’s going to bury me in one of the holes I dug. Then she turns on a wildlife program but I hate sitting still and she knows that. I start fidgeting with the rug, tearing off the bits of wool at the end even though I shouldn’t. I just can’t stop myself.
My eyes alight on the holodrive under the TV and it occurs to me that I have no idea what it looks like inside. Overwhelming curiosity strikes and I unplug it. I have to break one side of it in order to get the top off but once I do I can see in to all the hardware and wires. Interesting. There’s one wire in particular that piques my interest. I follow it to the chip panel but then decide that to really work it out I’ll have to strip the plastic casing off.
I don’t realize at first that Dad’s sitting on the couch behind me, watching between sips of beer. Our eyes meet. I freeze red-handed. But Dad lifts a finger to his nose and pointedly shifts his attention to the TV.
I start stripping the wire.
“Luke! What—?” Mom catches sight of Dad. “Why are you letting him do that?”
“I dunno. He’s curious,” is Dad’s reply.
“For god’s sake! You both deserve to be buried!”
*
October 9th, 2046
Dave
My little brother happens to be three years younger than me, a thousand times smarter, the most annoying person to have ever existed and also my favorite in the world.
Basically, if you want to keep any of your stuff you have to think of brilliant hiding places where he won’t get his grubby hands on it. I’ve got things stashed all over the place, but Mom hasn’t come around to my tactics yet – I think she still holds out hope that he’ll learn to behave himself, which is about as likely as me growing wings. Poor, sweet, naïve Mom.
When I get home from school I dump my bag in our bedroom and see Lukey fiddling with the electric chip of Mom’s new tablet. He’s totally lost to the world and has
n’t even noticed me.
My eyes widen. “Jeez, you must really have a death wish.”
“Nah, I’ve got her wrapped around my little finger.” Lukey looks up at me with a sweet, innocent expression. “Would you kill this face?”
I crack up and he grins wickedly.
“Boys?” Mom calls as she arrives home from her shift at the hospital.
“Quick!” I exclaim, lunging for the electrical bits and trying to shove them under the bed.
The door opens. “Hello, my darlings – hey, what is that? What are you hiding?”
We’re sprung. Mom sees the broken tablet and the crazy eyes arrive. “That’s for my work!”
“I did it,” I tell her.
“Funny, kid. You’re very funny.” She looks at Luke. “If that’s broken you’re in trouble.”
“’Course it’s not broken.”
“They’re always broken. And this time I’m taking every single thing out of this room and locking you in it. There won’t be anything you can get your hands on and you’ll be forced to use your imagination for once.”
“That’s child abuse!” he protests.
“Yeah, probably.”
*
This time Mom actually goes through with her threat. Lukey and I watch in astonishment as she pulls everything from the room. Like, everything everything. It takes a lot of effort and I think we both keep expecting her to lose interest in the punishment before she finishes. No such luck.
Me and Mom and Dad sit down to dinner. We can hear him moaning from the empty room.
“You can’t do this!” his little voice calls. “It’s a form of torture!”
I see Mom hiding her smile by stuffing her mouth with salad.
“It is pretty mean.” Dad grins.
“He’s a terrorist,” she replies. “He’s methodically destroying everything in this house, piece by piece.”
Lukey starts singing at the top of his voice. “Woe is me, I’ve been given no tea!”
I have to breathe deeply to stop myself from laughing. We are all staring very hard at our meals.