Alive

  Aramovsky sighs again, louder this time. The sound makes me want to knock him down. It must be so easy to judge the decisions of someone else when you sit back and do nothing.

  He strides to the middle pedestal, runs his finger along the flat top. He looks at his fingertip like he’s checking for dust. He turns his back to the pedestal and smiles at me.

  “We don’t have the Grownups’ weapon,” he says. “If it is a weapon at all, which we don’t know, because we’ve learned nothing. Bello is gone. Yong and Latu are dead. Perhaps Bishop isn’t the only one who wonders who would win a new vote.”

  The middle pedestal begins to glow.

  I take a reactive step back. The others do the same. Aramovsky realizes something is behind him, turns sharply, sees the glow and lunges away from it.

  The glow increases, a buzzing cloud that hovers in midair. The light doesn’t come from the pedestal itself, but rather from the empty space above it. Dozens of black spots appear within that glow, spots that shift and change.

  I point my spear at it.

  Bishop and El-Saffani hold their bone-clubs toward it. Gaston scurries behind Bishop. Aramovsky hides behind me.

  I want to run, but I stand my ground—by choice this time, not because my feet won’t obey. The glow is mesmerizing, almost hypnotizing.

  The floating black spots swell and bloat. They meld together, merge even as the glow itself begins to fade. The shifting black shape forms a circle…no, an oval.

  Inside that black form, two red dots take shape.

  And then the image above the pedestal becomes clear.

  I am looking at a monster.

  And that monster is looking back at me.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The monster is so real I step back and bump into Aramovsky.

  Only the head and shoulders are visible. Its black isn’t a color as much as it is an absence of light. Wrinkled, gnarled, leathery…vile. The thing is repulsive. Simply looking at it makes me want to destroy it, the same kind of instinctive reaction I’d feel if I saw a hairy spider crawling across my arm.

  Bishop creeps closer to the pedestal. He pokes his thighbone at the face, tentatively, as if he knows the monster isn’t really there but he has to be sure. The bone goes right through, distorting the face in a little puff of multicolored sparkles. Bishop pulls the bone back; sparkles cling to his club for a moment, then dissipate into wisps of nothingness.

  If Bishop can be brave, so can I. I step forward to stand at his left side.

  The monster’s eyes swirl with many shades of red, from a rich almost-black to a bright flash that burns yellow. When it speaks, I see the jaw moving, but can’t make out a mouth behind those disgusting folds.

  “Bishop, look at you,” the monster says. “Already with a weapon in your hand. Why am I not surprised? And what did you smear all over your body? You’re so frightening.”

  A man’s condescending voice delivered in a whispering hiss, the sound of dust sliding across stone. It makes my skin crawl. Whatever this monster is, every ounce of my body screams that it should not exist.

  Bishop glances at me. I see the fear and doubt in his eyes. If there was something to attack, he would attack it. Since there is not, he tilts his head toward the pedestal.

  He thinks I should do the talking.

  I stand up straight and try to look like a leader.

  “How did you know Bishop’s name?”

  The black thing’s head bobs a little. It makes a new sound, a sound like two bones scraping together. Is that…laughter?

  “Even though I can’t see as well as I used to, there’s no mistaking his muscular body,” it says. “And the Bishop I know is seldom without a weapon. Some things never change. Never-never-never.”

  A hand on my shoulder. Not one of support or threat, but to gently guide me aside, just enough for someone to lean in. It’s Aramovsky.

  “Are you a god?” he asks the monster.

  The monster stares for a moment. “I do not recognize you. What is your name?”

  “I am Aramovsky.”

  Wrinkled, withered shoulders shake, and again I hear that sound of scraping bone—the monster is laughing.

  “Aramovskeee, way up in a tree,” it says. “I’m surprised you made it. Of course a double-ring would assume I am a god a god I am. I suppose I do have the power over life and death. By definition, therefore and wherefore, the answer is yes.”

  I don’t know what a god is, exactly, but if gods do exist, they don’t look like this thing.

  Aramovsky’s eyes are wet and shining. He is afraid, but also enthralled—he doesn’t see the threat that Bishop and I see.

  I shake the tall boy’s hand off my shoulder, then step forward.

  “You know Bishop,” I say to the monster. “And you know Aramovsky. Who are you?”

  “Who am I? A god with a cod.”

  He is playing with us.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “You are no more a god than I am.”

  The red eyes flicker and swirl. “I do not recognize you, girl. What is your name?”

  “Yours first.”

  The wrinkled thing laughs. I want to drive my spear right through its face.

  “I am Brewer,” he says.

  Brewer. Like the boy in our coffin room. Could they be related?

  “I told you my name, girl,” it says. “Now, what is yours?”

  I stand a little straighter. “My name is Em.”

  The red eyes swirl faster. “Em? There is no Em in the command caste.”

  “I am the leader,” I say. “We voted on it.”

  “A vote? How interesting.”

  The red eyes seem to look me up and down, then lock in on my forehead.

  “You’re a circle?” He speaks that word with utter disbelief.

  I say nothing. The monster stares at me for a long moment. I stare back, not knowing what else to do.

  It makes a noise that might be a cough: a dry, rattling thing that pulls the narrow shoulders closer together. When that passes, the monster makes grunting sounds, like it’s trying to clear a throat that we can’t see.

  Finally, it seems to recover. Its red eyes slowly swirl.

  “I don’t know anyone named Em,” it says. “That doesn’t seem possible, unless…”

  He looks off to his right. His attention is elsewhere for a moment, then the eyes snap back to me.

  “Em? As in the letter M?”

  How do I respond? Do I lie, like O’Malley would? I don’t know that a lie helps us any more than the truth, so I nod.

  The monster leans closer.

  “Are you…Savage?” His voice, full of both awe and horror.

  Like the monster in the Garden, this one seems to know me. It is all I can do to contain my hope and excitement.

  I nod again. “You know who I am?”

  The monster leans away.

  “I can’t believe it,” it says. “Yes, I know who you are, little circle. I know all too well. You are the person who murdered me.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  This creature doesn’t know what’s real. He’s alive, he’s talking to me, but he thinks I killed him?

  “Little Savage,” the monster says. “You seem so strong, so healthy.” His tone has changed—loathing drips from every word. “Do you feel hot, Em? A fever cleaver in your head, perhaps?”

  Even if I was sick, I wouldn’t tell him, I wouldn’t show him any weakness.

  “I feel fine.”

  The monster sighs. “It’s been so long since the husks were serviced, I shouldn’t be surprised. The needly wheedly must be jammed, much like I am.”

  Needly wheedly? Does he mean needle? The one that stabbed me? How could he know about that, unless…

  “That tube in my coffin. You made it attack me?”

  “So many malfunctions,” he says. “Other husks far worse than yours, some far better. Broken valves, frozen hinges, corrupt controllers…the centuries have not been kind to the Cherished. I hope
the newer ones are in better condition. We’ll see soon enough.”

  “Answer my question.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own: it is cold and hard, the edge of the spear blade turned into sound. “Did you make that needle stab me?”

  “Of course I did,” he says. “You murdered me.”

  Again with that gibberish. I’m the only one that woke up like that. And he…wait, his words earlier…

  “You mumbled that the needle jammed,” I say. “What would have happened if it hadn’t?”

  His red eyes bore into mine. “Pain in the brain, little circle girl. A slow demise was your prize. I wanted your death to last, as did mine.”

  He tried to kill me. Me, no one else. A malfunction is the reason I am alive.

  “Where are we, Brewer?” I ask. “What is this prison?”

  He laughs again.

  “Prison? For a leader you are wrong-wrong-wrong quite a lot, are you not?”

  “What else was I wrong about?”

  “You said I am no god. And yet I am your eternal protector. You and yours are alive because of me.”

  I shake my head. I will not play games with this creature.

  “Protector? You just admitted that you tried to kill me. And your kind attacked us, took one of us away.”

  The black face leans forward. The red eyes swirl faster, narrow to slits. “Which one? And where was he abducted?”

  He pretends he doesn’t know? More games.

  “She, not he,” I say to the monster. “Bello. Taken by your kind. In the Garden.”

  A wicked hiss slides out of its hidden mouth. “Bello? That’s not fair, it’s not fair! I will fix that, oh yes I will. You said the Garden? You must mean the orchard. The only way there is through the empty section, but I sealed that off.” He looks off, thinking. “The scepter in your coffin room. I never did get it out of there, not that I wanted to touch my own murder weapon. Theresa must have used it.”

  The tool we’ve been using to open doors…that’s what someone used to smash in little Brewer’s skull.

  The monster’s eyes again settle on me. “Is anyone in the orchard now?”

  I shake my head. “Everyone is out. I won’t tell you where.”

  “I’m not the one you need to hide from,” Brewer says. “They know you are awake. It had to be Aramovsky, that insightful man. That’s not fair, that’s not fair!”

  I turn to the tall boy standing behind me. Aramovsky’s mouth hangs open. His tongue is moving, as if he’s trying to say something but can’t quite remember how to speak.

  I again look at the monster. “There is another Aramovsky?”

  The monster nods slowly. “Oh, yes. I know that bastard only too well.”

  “And we know another Brewer,” I say. “There was a boy in a coffin…in the room where you tried to murder me.”

  My words drip with venom, with raw fury. All the pain I felt, it’s because of this creature.

  “Coffin?” The red eyes narrow, the thick folds of jet-black skin at the edges deepen. “Why do you call it that?”

  “Because that’s what they are. Many of us died in those boxes.”

  The monster pauses. He seems to calm down a bit. He nods again.

  “Perhaps coffins is a fitting name after all. At least for the boy named Brewer. I waited for him for so long, but you killed him.” He starts to bob back and forth, slowly picking up speed. “They cracked open his husk—what you call his coffin—and they slaughtered him. He was helpless. They didn’t care. After that I tricked them, gas fools the lass, and I locked them out. They couldn’t get me they didn’t dare because I would kill them like they killed me and I wanted them to suffer wanted you to suffer damn them to hell they are the demons and I will get them oh yes I will get them and make them hurt in the worst way, they—”

  “Shut up,” I snap. I don’t want to hear any more of his deranged rambling. I have the spear: he must listen. “Tell us where you took Bello. And where are we? What is this building? Are we buried underground?”

  The bone scraping comes again, louder than before. He laughs so hard that some of his black wrinkles flop around like rolls of fat.

  I am tired of being laughed at. I glance at Bishop, see him snarling—he’s tired of it, too.

  The monster’s laugh abruptly changes to another cough, this one far worse than the first, a grating sound that reminds me of when I awoke with all that dust in my throat and lungs. The way Brewer shakes, it looks painful. It takes him a few moments to recover.

  His eyes are now more black than red.

  “You haven’t figured it out yet,” he says. “You’re not a very good leader, Em. You’re just a circle, wasn’t that their words? How they belittled your acumen. How foolish they were, remember?”

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t remember anything.”

  “Ah, of course not,” Brewer says. “Then again, you were always smart enough to use people smarter than you. Where is Okadigbo? Is she still alive, or did you kill her again?”

  “I haven’t killed anyone, Brewer.”

  Yong’s gasping face flashes through my thoughts. The wide eyes, the shock, the terror-filled knowledge that he was as good as dead.

  It was an accident….

  I focus on Brewer’s words. Okadigbo, he said. That’s a name on one of the coffins in my room. A shriveled skeleton in a big, white shirt. She’s dead, yes, but I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t have. Unless I did it before someone put me in the coffin, and I can’t remember that just like I can’t remember school, or the face of my father.

  I shake my head, sharp and fast. Brewer is trying to confuse me.

  “Stop lying to us,” I say. “And tell me where we are!”

  “No Okadigbo? Oh, well, I should have checked the husks, but there wasn’t enough time and time was all that was enough. How about your nemesis, Theresa?”

  I don’t know what a nemesis is. I don’t know who Theresa is, either.

  “Oh, you don’t recognize that name?” Brewer says. “Of course you wouldn’t, not at your age. But if she lived, you might know her last name—is Theresa Spingate still alive?”

  I shouldn’t be surprised that he knows more of us, but I am. Surprised and furious. I won’t let anything happen to her. I’ve lost Latu and Bello. There is nothing I won’t do to protect Spingate.

  “I wager that Theresa still lives,” Brewer says. “I’m surprised she didn’t tell you where you are. Perhaps she hasn’t figured it out yet—side effects of the husk are so bad-bad-bad I am not glad. Or maybe she has figured it out and chooses not to tell you. So many secrets locked away in that pretty red head.”

  I can’t take it anymore. I step forward. I lean in close to the strange, floating presence that is Brewer’s disgusting face. My words come out as a brutal scream.

  “Tell me where we are! Tell me or I will find you and I will cut you open. I’ll watch you die, Brewer. I will make you hurt. Do you hear me? Do you?”

  The red eyes gaze back at me, so close, so real.

  “You already did that,” he says quietly. “You hurt me more than you could ever know. Now you threaten me again? Some things never change, never ever never. You always were a bitch, Savage.”

  I lean away so fast I stumble. Bishop’s hand on my back keeps me from falling.

  The scarred monster in the Garden said the same words.

  These things…they know who I am.

  Brewer sighs as if he’s disappointed in me.

  “Little circle girl, you are not in a building,” he says. “You are not underground. You are not underwater. You’re not under anything. And you’re not in a prison—not for you, anyway, although that’s exactly what this place is for me. Me-me-me a sad cat in a sadder tree.”

  Madness bubbles from his every word. He’s insane. Insane enough to have made pyramids of human skulls? Or to have arranged severed left arms in a big pinwheel?

  Enough to have impaled babies on hooks?

  I try to keep my own murdero
us anger in check. I try so hard, but I can’t hold it all back. My words are a growl, a low, grating promise of revenge.

  “Tell me what this place is, Brewer.”

  “Oh, little circle girl, don’t you know it is better to show, rather than tell?”

  Below, above and around us, the curved, black walls flicker and swirl, a million colors suddenly twisting and spinning. As quickly as they came, the colors fade away. Somehow, I am now looking beyond the curved walls, into a different kind of blackness: a blackness that seems to go on forever. In that blackness, I see tiny points of bright light.

  Points of light, moving slowly—almost imperceptibly—upward.

  I feel a fuzziness in my head; my brain is reaching, grasping, trying to beat past the blanked-out parts. And when it does, when it connects the images to words, I realize what I am looking at.

  Stars.

  Those points of light, those are stars.

  “Little leader learns the truth,” the monster says. “Take a look behind you.”

  All of us turn away from the pedestals.

  I see the backs of Gaston and Aramovsky, of El Saffani. I see the ladder that brought us down, and past it, the clear, curved wall. But beyond that is something so big I can’t even comprehend it. Out in the star-speckled blackness, I see a vast, slowly rotating disc of brown and green and blue.

  Another word connects, clicks into place.

  I am looking at a planet.

  “Space,” I say. “We’re in a spaceship.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  You are wrong-wrong-wrong quite a lot, are you not?

  That’s what Brewer said to me. He’s right.

  We all stare at the spinning sphere out in the blackness. Below us and on our sides, the moving stars seem to spin in time with the planet, as if they are pinned to it by infinitely long invisible sticks.

  Stars and planet, all spinning in the same direction.

  The twins stand close together, their clubs now aimed past the ladder, perhaps at the planet, perhaps at space, perhaps at the stars.