by Teri Terry
Lara stops by a tree, leans against it, and I catch up with her, stand next to her.
“What’s wrong?” she says.
“I was just thinking about my mum. She died in the epidemic.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Where’s your mum?” The words are out before I can think whether I should be asking this: it’s probably in Cepta’s no-go areas.
But she doesn’t look upset, just puzzled; then she shrugs. “I don’t know. She was never around, so I don’t much care.”
And she runs off again.
Now I’m puzzled too.
That doesn’t sound the way Kai refers to their mum. Is this part of another personality?
She stops at the top of a hill, arms stretched out dramatically. A path zigzags down below us and leads to a narrow track road.
Is there movement below us? I squint and can just make out a group of people in the distance, walking this way—quite a number of them—and I’m filled with misgivings. Who are they? I connect quickly with Xander and Cepta to tell them what I saw.
“Here it is,” Lara says.
“What?”
“The edge of the world.”
I frown, puzzled, then touch Lara’s mind lightly: what does she see?
And through her eyes, everything past the point where she stands is blank, like somebody erased it all. Why?
Can I convince her what she sees isn’t real, get her to step forward?
But my eyes are drawn again to the people approaching us below: we should get away from here.
Another time.
CHAPTER 9
LARA
I’M WRAPPED IN A BLANKET, towel around my wet hair, hands clasping a mug of hot sweet tea, and a very heavy cat across my knees.
The door opens.
“Hi, Lara.” It’s Cepta. My eyes flick to the back of the house—Shay is having her turn in the shower.
“Hi,” I say.
She comes in, sweeps toward me, and smiles, and I’m happy to see her smile, to feel its warmth—a feeling that slides through the rest of me.
“I’ve missed you today,” she says. “What have you been up to?”
“We went for a walk. In the rain!”
“Indeed! Hope you don’t catch cold. Is Shay still in the shower?”
There is the sound of a door opening and closing behind us. “She was.”
“She’ll be late soon; no matter. They’ll wait.”
Shay comes out fast, so fast that she must have known Cepta was here, and so she rushed to join us. Her hair is wet, tunic and leggings pulled on and not quite straight.
Then there is something happening—I don’t know what it is—between them. I glance at Shay.
“Why not out loud? I’m sorry, Cepta. If Lara can’t come to joining tonight, then neither will I.”
There is real shock on Cepta’s face. “It is part of your duty as a member of this Community to be there. Not a thing you can take up and put down again as you like.”
“I can join from here, can’t I?” Shay says. “If Beatriz can from miles away, I think I can when I’m only a few hundred feet from the hall.”
“Well, apart from that. We also have to discuss the approach—” Cepta’s words break off, replaced by silent ones. The approach of what?
“Tough,” Shay says. “I’m sure you’ll cope without me. We have an evening planned, haven’t we, Lara?”
“Yes. We’re telling stories,” I say. “I’ve been making one up in my head about Chamberlain.”
“I think Xander might have something to say about this,” Cepta says. Cepta and Shay both defocus again, and I know what they’re doing—it’s like a conference call. With Xander. Emotions flit across Cepta’s face. First anger. Then sunshine.
“Enjoy your evening, girls.” She sweeps out of the house.
“What made her so happy all of a sudden?”
“Let’s just say she’s got a date for tonight,” Shay says. “And I’m trying very hard not to think about it.”
CHAPTER 10
SHAY
DESPITE WHAT I SAID, I’m unsettled by not going for dinner with the rest of Community. There is a sense of being a part of this place that I’ve never experienced anywhere before in my life. I mean, I was part of my family, but really that was just me and Mum, and as wonderful as she was, being connected and close with a large group of people like this—well, it’s on another scale. Maybe the way we moved around when I was younger made me miss out on any sense of what it would be like, being with the same people all the time and really knowing them.
Someone comes with our dinner and to make up a bed in the other room for me—it’s one of the non-Community members. I say thank you, and she just smiles. I help her set out our dinner, and then get in her way by the door.
“Hi,” I say.
Her eyes glance up at mine, then down again.
“She won’t talk to you,” Lara says.
“Why not?”
“You’re in Community.”
“So? No one else can hear now.”
“She doesn’t understand how things work,” Lara says about me, and the woman shakes her head.
“Will she talk to you?” I ask.
“Probably. But not while you’re listening.”
The woman leans forward, whispers something to Lara.
“She has to go now,” Lara says. “Her children are alone. She’s nervous of the new people.”
Lara turns quickly, takes the bread and fruit that came with our dinner, and passes it to the woman. She looks uncertainly at me.
“Shay won’t tell,” Lara says.
The woman takes it and almost runs out the door.
“Lara, you have to explain to me. How do things work?”
“Well, it’s like this. Cepta said that some of these people who are immune can stay and help in the fields and with chores and stuff, but they’re not allowed to talk to Community members. If they do, they get sent away. And there’s not enough food for them, but it’s even worse everywhere else, so they want to stay.”
“Why on earth aren’t they allowed to talk?”
“I don’t know.”
“But they’ll talk to you?”
“Sometimes. I’m not in Community, or with them—I’m neither. And only Xander, Cepta, and you talk to me—not anyone else in Community.” She says it matter-of-factly, but she knows how separate she is. “That server I know—Anna. She’s told me a bit about her children. There are four of them.”
“Is that why you’re so skinny—giving food away?”
“I’m not that hungry most of the time anyway.”
I raise an eyebrow. She’s lying. Sweet-natured girl.
Now she’s alarmed. “You won’t tell, will you? Cepta says it’s wrong to waste food.”
“Of course not! And if they’re going to eat it, how is it wasted?”
“Cepta says it is a waste to feed those who don’t feed their minds.”
I’m uneasy. What is this place? It’s this amazing feeling of belonging to each other and the earth and all the life around us—but not other actual people, ones who don’t feed their minds. Whatever that means.
People who are hungry. Who have nowhere to go because of the epidemic. People who do menial chores for us—but aren’t allowed to speak or they get sent away to starve.
Joining will be soon, and for once I’m not sure I even want to. How do I hide what I was just thinking?
“Is something wrong?” Lara says.
“Something usually is. But something is also right, and that is you.”
A smile lights her up from the inside.
CHAPTER 11
LARA
SHAY IS GONE. I mean, she’s still here; she said she wouldn’t leave, and she hasn’t.
She’s on the floor, cross-legged. But her eyes are closed, and her mind has gone to join with the others.
I watch her curiously. What is it like? I’ve asked Cepta before, and if she’s in a good mood, sometimes she tries to explain. She says it’s pure joy. If she’s in a bad mood, she then adds, one I’ll never experience.
But why? That is one question I’ve never understood the answer to.
What would happen if I spoke to Shay now? Would she hear me? Would everyone she is joined with hear me too?
I’m tempted to try.
This is the one time I’ve noticed before that Cepta’s touch on my mind is almost gone. I say “almost” because I think if I screamed at her, she’d probably still hear—screamed inside my mind, that is. She’s got some sort of radar on me, she said once.
But it is a time I can think about things without her noticing. At least, not until later.
“Hi, Shay,” I say. Voice low.
No reaction.
I wave a hand in front of her face. There is still no response, and I’m disappointed.
“Shay?” I say, louder this time, then sigh.
I’ll just have to wait for it to be over. Lucky I’m good at waiting.
CHAPTER 12
SHAY
JOINING FROM A HOUSE across the other side of Community is no different than if I were in the same room as the others.
We reach out for Beatriz and Elena, and tonight we get a surprise. There are others.
Beatriz is excited, and her voice is even and clear. We’ve joined with another group of survivors, she says. There’s Patrick, Zohra, JJ, Henry, and Amaya. They’re traveling with us now to the farm.
And then they join in as well, and there is a chorus of names and introductions and personalities to match each one of them. And Patrick, with Beatriz’s help to extend his reach, sends a message to me alone.
They knew Kai and tried to help him find me; Beatriz has told them what happened, and he’s sorry we’ve been separated. The sorrow that has been muted by everything else threatens to take me away, and I almost withdraw, but joined as we are, these people—even the ones I’ve just met—are more than anyone can ever be. They shore me up.
And Xander knew about Patrick coming already: he had been encouraging them to travel and join us. With so many more survivors, joining is far beyond anything we’ve experienced before. Then Xander says we should try to reach other Communities in Scotland, to see how far we can go. All of us join in with him and reach out. We find a startled Speaker near Glencoe, another in Crieff, then on the Isle of Skye. Soon we are covering most of Scotland.
Around us the members of Community are puzzled, wondering why they haven’t been joined in yet, but we strengthen the linked survivors first, then we—and the other groups in different places—as one reach out to those nearby us.
Initially it takes more concentration, synchronizing breathing and heartbeats with so many souls in so many places, but soon that is as automatic as breathing and pumping blood around my own body.
We are one, survivors and members of Community here and elsewhere—the earth, rivers, lakes, and forests too, and all that lives, breathes, or grows within them—all of Scotland that lives and breathes.
But it’s not all the people, is it? What about those who work for us? Why don’t they join too?
Some small part of me remembers enough about who I am as me, alone, to try something else—carefully, cautiously, a sliver of my consciousness divided from the rest so no one should notice—to feel for the others beyond us in the woods, and Lara too. But they’re all blank, and I don’t understand why.
Blank…or somehow shielded?
And something else is wrong: it’s Cepta. I can’t quite work out what it is. She’s here, joined with the rest of us. We’re all connected, and that takes effort and concentration to achieve. But there is a background note coming from Cepta; it’s discordant. And it isn’t her being angry or annoyed with me; it’s something else.
I try a small silent whisper.
Cepta? Are you okay?
I catch a glimpse of fear, pain. One that is washed away so fast I think I imagined it. But that wasn’t done by her. At least, I don’t think so.
Was it…Xander?
Then I think, So what? If Xander has gotten annoyed with Cepta for some reason, it’s about time.
Yet later, after we say goodbye and separate off one by one, part of me—shielded carefully—is still disturbed by what I sensed before. She was frightened—it felt real. Why?
Somehow I have to try to reach her again.
Cepta? A private message.
What is it? A very sharp retort, and more the Cepta I expect. Is everything okay with Lara?
Yes, fine.
Well? What do you want?
Nothing. Never mind.
I’m busy. You’re on your own tonight.
I get a small glimpse—one I’m sure she’s shared deliberately. She’s with Xander, in his house, walking to him and unbuttoning her tunic, and I disconnect as fast as I can.
She’s busy with my father. BLEUGH. That is just so gross.
I slowly come back to myself, to my body, and open my eyes.
Lara is here, watching me, her head tilted to one side as if she’s been studying me and is wondering something.
“What?”
“You were making faces.”
“I’m not surprised.”
And now I have an idea. If Cepta is busy, and Xander is too—well. Lara and I really are on our own tonight.
“Is it time to tell stories now?” Lara says. “I’ve been waiting ages.” Her voice is aggrieved, and I’m pleased: that she’s feeling what she wants to feel. Lara loves stories—Callie loved to read, Kai said. There are no books in this house.
But I know where we can get some. Maybe…
“Now you’re smiling in a funny way,” she says. “Like you’ve thought of something you shouldn’t.”
“Oh yes. Do you fancy an adventure?”
CHAPTER 13
LARA
IT’S DARK, IT’S LATE, and I tingle with knowing we’re doing something I’m completely not supposed to do.
Shay walks up to the library door, opens it. A door she’s free to go in and out of, but I’m not.
She steps in and the lights go on, and I jump, sure someone has seen us and put them all on.
“The lights are automatic, it’s fine,” Shay says. “Come on. If we get caught, I’ll say it’s my fault, that I made you do it. It’ll be all right.”
I look all around us.
“Everyone is asleep, I promise you.”
I step forward, almost shaking, until I’m standing in the doorway.
Through it, as far as my eyes can see, are books. Shelves and shelves of books.
“Are you sure?” I say.
“Yes. There’s no point in me picking something for you; I’d get it wrong. You have to do it yourself.”
“Cepta will know.”
“I’ll deal with her.”
My mouth is hanging open now, and I snap it shut again.
I want to come in—I believe Shay when she says she’ll deal with Cepta—but somehow just can’t take that one more step.
“Let me help you,” Shay says. She takes my hand, and then, at the same moment, something eases inside me. We step inside together.
My eyes and then my hands run over the books, wanting to take in and touch them all.
There’s a lot of the boring stuff, like Xander brought me once—about stars and rocks and things I’ve never heard of—but then Shay finds a section with stories.
I’m pulling books off the shelves and going through them and hugging them like friends, and now Shay is laughing at how many of them I’ve got.
“Let me carry some for you,” she says, and take
s some of them, looks through them. “Really? Moby-Dick?” She makes a face. “Well, if you want it.”
“Do we sign them out or something?”
“No. If anyone notices the fiction depletion, I’ll say I took them.”
We’re there for ages because I keep seeing something else I want, until finally Shay stifles a yawn. “Come on. Let’s go back and get some sleep.”
We step out of the library, and the lights go off automatically.
We lug the piles of books back to the house. Shay turns on the lamp, and I pick I Capture the Castle and open it.
“You’re not going to want to sleep now, are you?” Shay says.
“No. That is…”
“What?”
“Not unless I have to.”
“You don’t have to anything. Stay up as long as you want.”
I start reading but get a sense of Shay’s eyes and glance up again; she’s looking at me still, a serious, odd expression in her eyes.
“What?”
“Looking at you now, I don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong at all; you’re perfect.”
I close the book, disquieted. “A funny sort of perfect.”
“You tell me, then. What is the less-than-perfect problem?”
I frown. “My thoughts slide away when I try to think about it. About me.”
“There are blocks in your mind; I can see them: they stop you from thinking certain things. Cepta’s doing, I expect.” She’s annoyed, but not with me.
I look back at her, understanding something I haven’t before. I thought that not being able to think about some things I wanted to was part of what was wrong with me. But Cepta did it? On purpose? I cross my arms, an unfamiliar feeling rising inside. “Sometimes I could just slap Cepta. If she were here right now, I would!” I mime a slapping gesture, and there is a weird feeling inside, like the idea came from outside of me—but then it slides away. “Anyway, that would be a very bad idea.”