Burn

by Patrick Ness

  “We can’t stop her,” Sarah said, quietly.

  “She will come anyway,” Kazimir said. “And the prophecy says you will be in the right place at the right time to thwart her.”

  “We’re just going to keep ignoring the fact the prophecy was dead wrong about that in the last world?”

  Kazimir squirmed. “Prophecies. . . . Sometimes you have to improvise with them as circumstances arise.”

  “How on earth is that supposed to be a comfort?”

  Agent Dernovich said, “Thank you, sir,” and hung up the phone. He looked at Kazimir and Sarah. “We’ve got an army.”

  Hugh had a car, one he had paid for himself out of after-school jobs. It was extremely long and a spotless light blue, even in the bad weather. He took exquisite care of it; Malcolm had watched him run a finger over a single mote of dust before they’d got inside and headed north.

  They made bewilderingly fast progress. They’d already crossed the border, which had given Malcolm panic, but they had literally been waved through without stopping. The address Malcolm remembered from Nelson was a further forty-five minutes away. It had all gone so quickly.

  “So have you . . . ?” Hugh blushed so hard Malcolm could see it on his neck. “Have you done more than kiss a man?”

  “Yes,” Malcolm replied.

  “And you weren’t ashamed after?”

  Malcolm’s forehead creased. “Not at all. Why would I be?”

  “Because it’s, you know, it’s . . . an abomination.”

  “Against whom?”

  Hugh swallowed. “God, I guess. People hate it. They hate people like me.”

  “They’re wrong.”

  Hugh turned to look at him at that.

  “They are,” Malcolm said. “There are people who believe that in my world, but I was told it was their weakness. Not mine.”

  “So you’re not ashamed at all?”

  “I’m plenty ashamed at things I’ve done, but I’m not ashamed of holding Nelson close to me. Feeling his skin on mine. Taking him into my body.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “None of that shames me. None of the tenderness, none of the carnality, none of the intimacy. None of it.” Malcolm felt his eyes filling. “It was love. And I threw it away.”

  Hugh looked over from the driver’s side. “Tell me again why we aren’t taking you to see him?”

  “Because my Nelson needs me,” Malcolm said. “And this one needs you.”

  “Well, according to the map,” Hugh said, “we’re nearly there.”

  They had come to a poor section of the outskirts of Vancouver. The houses were smaller than the ones they’d been passing, but were clean and well-tended. “What was the number again?” Hugh asked.

  “Two two one.”

  221 was mid-block, quiet like the others. After a bit of quibbling, Malcolm was the one who went to knock. No one was home. He went back to the car.

  “Maybe he got held up at school,” Hugh said, then gave a little laugh. “Gosh, I’m actually disappointed. I’ve never even played truant before. I had some stupid fantasy we’d drive up and I’d meet this dream man and . . . I don’t know. Live happily ever after?”

  “I never promised that,” Malcolm said. “No one can ever promise that. Believe me.”

  “Will he even know me?”

  “No.”

  Hugh frowned. “Then what am I supposed to say?”

  “Ask him if he needs a place to be safe. Ask him . . .” Malcolm thought. “Ask him about his grandfather’s truck.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s his only escape route.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then I don’t know, Hugh. All I can tell you is that I saw him, and he saw me, and there was . . . an understanding. One deeper than should happen just by accident.”

  Hugh started jiggling his leg up and down, but then he smiled. “I wish I had a recording of everything you’ve said.”

  Malcolm laughed, along with his other self. It was, he thought, one of the nicest things that had ever happened to him.

  “Holy moly,” Hugh said, the leg stopping. A young man was walking down the street toward them. “Is that him?”

  They watched Nelson—for oh, yes, it was him—as he came down the sidewalk, head low, his posture hunched and closed.

  “He looks unhappy,” Malcolm said, and it took everything in him, all his training, not to get out of the car right then and take Nelson in his arms.

  He had no idea what he expected of or for Hugh, really. No idea what future either of them could forge. They lived in two countries, for one thing; they were both teenagers in a world that didn’t give teenagers much freedom. Was there even a chance for them?

  Yes. There had to be. He had to at least give them that chance. If nothing else, they would both know there were chances to be had, even in this world.

  Nelson never fully looked up as he turned into his walkway, took out a key, and entered his house.

  “Your turn to go knock,” Malcolm said.

  “What am I supposed to say?” Hugh looked panicked. “This is crazy. This is completely crazy.” He put his hands back on the wheel. “I’m not doing this. This is a dream that’s now come to an end—”

  Malcolm put his hand over Hugh’s. The heat of Hugh’s skin was surprising, almost shocking in this cold. Malcolm took Hugh’s hand gently off the wheel and brought it up, pressing his face into it, letting Hugh feel his skin in return. Hugh let out a little gasp.

  “For us,” Malcolm said. “For him, but also for us.”

  “What do I—?”

  “Just knock. Pretend you’ve made a mistake if it doesn’t seem right. I swear to you, this isn’t a trick. You can feel my flesh. You can feel that it’s yours. I have to save you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no one saved me.”

  Malcolm released his hand, and without another word, Hugh got out of the car, closing the door behind him. Malcolm watched him gather his courage, heard him mutter, “This is crazy,” but he crossed the street.

  Malcolm found he couldn’t watch Hugh knock, couldn’t face seeing Nelson answer. Hugh had left the car running, so Malcolm clicked on the radio, anything to distract from the ache of Nelson being so close but so impossibly far.

  “—estimated deaths could be in the hundreds of thousands,” the radio said. Malcolm listened for a few minutes more. He glanced at Nelson’s house, saw Hugh speaking, though Hugh stood in a way that was blocking Nelson from sight.

  Which was for the best, Malcolm thought, as he slipped quietly out the passenger’s side and headed stealthily for the main road and hopefully a ride that would take him back south as fast as humanly possible.

  “I’m just saying you guys should probably leave,” Sarah said.

  “My dad isn’t going anywhere,” Jason said, from the driver’s seat. “You know how hard he worked for this farm?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you? You’re not the Sarah I knew. I don’t know what you know about me.”

  They were sitting in Jason’s dad’s truck. The sun had gone down, but there was still no dragon in Frome. It had flown to Seattle instead, leaving it little more than smoking heaps on its seven hills. Estimates at the number of dead were still going up, and the best war planes in the U.S. military hadn’t even made a dent in the dragon, according to Agent Dernovich, which didn’t bode well for the army on its way here.

  So what chance did she and Kazimir stand?

  A prophecy. One stupid prophecy.

  But it was at least a prophecy that had brought her here.

  “My Jason lived with his dad, too,” she said. “His mom died in an internment camp in Idaho during the war. I know how hard his dad worked for his farm. My Jason’s dad was the one who suggested we hire Kazimir in the first place, so in a way, he started this whole thing.”

  “Kazimir,” Jason said. “The one who’s supposed to be a dragon on the inside.”

  Sarah shrug
ged. “I don’t understand any of this either, but maybe we don’t have to. There’s a problem out there. Maybe we can fix it. And maybe . . .” She looked into his eyes. It was too dark to see the color, but she knew the exact shade of brown they were, knew the small chicken pox scar just to the side of his nose (this Jason had it, too, she’d seen it in her mother’s kitchen), saw the familiar way his jaw set when he was trying to figure something out. “Maybe we shouldn’t question second chances when we get them.”

  “My mom died over there, too?” he said, quietly. “There’s a second chance I’d have liked.”

  He tapped his hands on the steering wheel. That was a new habit, a different one for this Jason. So strange how the similarities could be as exact as a chicken pox scar, but as different as Sarah’s mom being alive here.

  “And now, a dragon,” Jason said.

  “We had plenty of those over there. A dragon isn’t news to me.”

  “It sure is news here. Bad news.”

  “Which is why you should leave.”

  “Is that why you walked all the way out here?” he asked. “To warn us? About something we already knew?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, then he said, “So that’s why I was with you.”

  “What?”

  “In your world. I was with you when the big attack happened. The one where, if I understand correctly, a woman shot me dead before she turned into the dragon that just destroyed Seattle.”

  “It was actually the sheriff that shot you. Not that that helps.”

  “This is so crazy,” Jason said, quietly. “All of it.” He looked at her now, then looked away again. “Like I said, I did think about it.” Tap, tap, tap, with his fingers. “About you.”

  “You really did?”

  “Of course.” He looked at her again. “But you died.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around.”

  “Don’t be funny. It was horrible. And it wasn’t you. It’s not like you’ve come back to life. A girl called Sarah still died.”

  Sarah nodded slowly. “So did a boy called Jason.”

  He tapped his hands on the steering wheel again. “Second chances,” he whispered in the dark.

  “It was almost over, though,” she said. “You and me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The school in Minnesota your dad is sending you to.”

  “What? My dad’s not sending me to any school.”

  She opened her mouth to respond but the words didn’t come immediately. She finally just said, stupidly, “He’s not?”

  “No,” Jason said, laughing ruefully. “No way he trusts the world to treat me properly when he’s not there to protect me. I’ll go to college, but no farther than University of Washington.” He frowned. “Which isn’t there anymore, is it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Well, don’t give him any ideas about Minnesota.”

  She laughed. “I won’t.”

  He nodded, thinking. “Which means I’m staying around.” He turned to her. “Are you?”

  She felt that ache for him again, but this time it wasn’t so hopeless, so heavy. It was almost pleasurable. She had lost him so completely, refound him so suddenly, and if it wasn’t exactly the same, who knew what the future might hold?

  “If we all get through this,” she said, “I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

  He nodded, seriously. “If we all get through this.”

  “I need to get back home,” Sarah said. “My mom . . . Darlene wants me there in case the dragon comes. She won’t leave either.”

  “Do you want me to be with you when it does?”

  She could see his smile in the faint light. “Don’t get cocky,” she said, but she was smiling, too. “I want you as far away as absolutely possible.”

  She leaned over and kissed his cheek as she left, his delighted surprise following her back home.

  “There you are,” Darlene said, opening the back door before Sarah had even walked up the first porch step.

  “I told you, I went to Jason’s—”

  “Yes, yes, come inside.” Darlene practically dragged Sarah through the door.

  “What’s going on?” Sarah asked.

  But Darlene was already turning and saying, “Here she is.”

  Gareth Dewhurst stood motionless in the middle of the kitchen. He held a hat down at his side in his left hand. When he saw Sarah, it tumbled right out of his fingers.

  “My God,” he whispered. “Darlene, what is this?”

  “It’s . . . Well, it’s not quite our daughter, but . . .”

  His voice sharpened. “You told me the farm was in danger from the thing that attacked Seattle—”

  “And it is, Gareth—”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Language in my house,” Darlene said, sharp.

  “Our house. I’m still on the mortgage, remember? What the hell is going on here? Who is this?”

  Sarah couldn’t help herself. She knew she shouldn’t, but she had waited as long as she could and then there was just nothing more but to move across the floor of the kitchen and grab her father around the chest in an embrace. His arms didn’t move up to hug her back at first, but he didn’t push her away. She held on and on.

  Then she heard the breath, the telltale breath of her father about to say something.

  “Her smell,” he said, so quietly she might have been the only person in the room to hear him. “My God, she smells just like her.”

  “I think you could explain it to me a hundred times,” Gareth Dewhurst said a little later, his face ashen, his eyes red with unsuccessfully withheld tears, “and I still wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Gareth,” Darlene started. “Don’t you think I felt the same?”

  “I don’t know what you feel, Darlene,” Gareth said. “I haven’t for a long time.”

  “And you were Mister Understanding and Sympathy? Sarah died and you were out planting the next morning.”

  Her father raised his voice. “Yes, well, it was like two people died for me. My daughter and the walking corpse my wife turned into.”

  Darlene’s face became a storm. “I didn’t lose the same?”

  “Darlene—”

  “My dad planted the day after my mom died,” Sarah said. They both turned to look at her. “I think he just had to do something, and that was the job that was there. I wish he’d . . . Well, I mean, I always wished he’d come in and hold me some in the days after, but I knew he still loved me. He planted so the farm would keep going, so we’d have a future. He kept trying. He taught me how to drive. He stood up for me when I needed it. He taught me how to deal with dragons.” She was crying in full flow now. “He made mistakes, sure, and there were times I wished I had a father who was softer.” She wiped her cheeks. “But I never wished for a father who was kinder. Sometimes you need something to lean against. Something holding you up so regular and strong you forget it’s even there.”

  Her father—or not her father, but so close—crossed his arms slowly. “That’s all very pretty,” he said, “but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “Look at her, you stubborn old fool,” Darlene said. “You said yourself she smelled like our daughter.”

  “I’m not your daughter,” Sarah said.

  “See?” Gareth said.

  “But I’m the daughter of Gareth and Darlene Dewhurst. I go to Frome High School with Jason Inagawa, son of Hisao Inagawa. I had three pigs called Bess, Mamie, and Eleanor. I’m good at math and English, but a bit slow in history. I hate onions, but you both forced me to eat them because they were from the vegetable patch. I can’t sing, even when I try. I fall asleep sitting up in church sometimes . . .”

  She trailed off. They were both staring at her hard now, their eyes wide.

  “I’m not her,” she said again, “but I’m a version of her. A version who didn’t die. Just like you are to me.”


  Darlene let out a long sigh. She looked at Gareth. “You see why I asked you to come?”

  He lowered his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?” Darlene asked.

  He didn’t answer. A long silence fell.

  “Right now,” Kazimir finally said, stepping in from the living room where he’d obviously been eavesdropping, “we are going to plan for the end of the world.”

  “By midnight,” Agent Dernovich said, “soldiers and tanks will be coming down these roads. We’re not even sure if they’ll be in time.” He glanced at Kazimir. “After the Seattle attack, we’re not even one hundred percent sure this is where the dragon is coming next.”

  “It is,” Kazimir said. “She is waking up to herself, and she will know she is incomplete. She will come for the Spur, and if she gets it, this whole world is lost.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I still don’t see how it can actually be hers if Malcolm only just chopped off her finger—?”

  “Recurrence,” Kazimir said. “Everything always happening, again and again. Maybe this Spur literally belongs to a world before, and the finger of the woman we saw will be the Spur in a world to come. All I can tell you, it is close enough. She will be after it.” He grinned, weakly. “We have seen its power, have we not? What it can do to even a satellite?”

  Agent Dernovich coughed. “What do you mean by that?”

  “She blew up a Russian satellite,” Sarah said. “Which pretty much starts a war that will end all wars, but between men and men, not men and dragons.”

  “Which it turns out is what she wanted all along.”

  “I’m sorry,” Agent Dernovich said, “you’re saying, this person who turned into a dragon, she had a weapon that could destroy a satellite?”

  Kazimir waved the Spur. “It is much more impressive when it lights up.”

  “And this satellite was enough to make her declare war on the entire world?”

  “As a pretext,” said Kazimir, “but yes.”

  Agent Dernovich stroked his chin. He glanced over at his daughter, asleep beneath a blanket on Darlene’s couch. Or at least seeming so. He wouldn’t put it past her to have been listening for the past several hours.