Unafraid

by Megan Lynch

  “What?” he asked.

  “They’re hopeless,” she said. “Completely hopeless. We’re never going to get to Canada.”

  “We can’t think like that.”

  “Why do they want me to teach the kids? They must not think they’re going to school anytime soon. They’re going to wait all winter to move us. If we move at all.”

  “Stop it. I mean it. They’ve got a point. If any of the kids get separated for any reason, they’ll need to know how to read maps and count money and stuff, right? And it probably won’t be for too long.” He could tell she wanted to protest again, but he wasn’t going to let her. “We’re leaving, Samara. It’s just a matter of when. Have a little faith.”

  His voice, to his own ears, sounded so confident that he almost convinced himself.

  Chapter Four

  JoJo wasn’t quite getting it, but something told Samara he was close. She took some acorns out of her pocket. “Count as I put these on the table,” she said to Joseph. He twisted in his seat so that the top and bottom halves of his body reached away from each other on opposite sides of the chair. Samara knew she still had him by the way his eyes followed the acorns.

  JoJo counted to twelve.

  “Twelve acorns. Now you have three friends, and you want to divide these evenly between your friends.”

  JoJo’s head dropped below the table. “I can’t divide!”

  “Fine. No dividing. Just give this acorn to one friend. Here.” She pointed to one spot. He took the acorn and thunked it down. She smiled. “Now give this one to another friend. Now to friend number three. Now to friend number four.”

  He gave her a broad-mouth smile and clasped his hands on the desk, the way schools on the outside require. “I did it!”

  “But you still have some left over!”

  His face fell. “Oh…”

  “It’s okay. We’ll just give some more out. First to friend number one…then another to friend number two…”

  They went through this three more times before he could answer the question on the page. 12 divided by 4 = ? Karale had taken the liberty of making some notes, and Samara was determined that JoJo and the other kids would learn all—not just some—of Karale’s recommended skills within a few weeks.

  “One more time. What is twelve divided by four?”

  “Three.” He said it with a confident tone and a straight back, but he leaned slightly away, toward the door.

  Samara smiled. “You can go now.”

  He leapt away and was out the door before she could stand up. She gathered the acorns in her hand and opened the window to throw them out.

  “Hey!”

  A man had walked in front of the window. The acorns had bounced across the top of his head on their way to the ground.

  “I’m so sorry!” said Samara. “I didn’t realize you were there.”

  The man looked at her and smiled. She knew that smile. It happened sometimes on the outside, but more often, without their injections that kept their minds off such things, she saw it here. She looked at the acorns on the ground.

  “You didn’t know. I’ve been trying to do what they tell us to do—you know, walk close to buildings.”

  Samara had not heard this announcement, but she thought it was probably just another thing she’d missed working the night watch with Bristol. “I’ll be sure to look next time.”

  He got very close to the window. “What’s your name?”

  “Samara.”

  “I’m Taye.”

  They shook hands. Samara realized it was the first physical contact she’d had with someone besides Bristol in six months. “Well,” she said, “don’t let me stop you.”

  “I’m coming in there. With you.”

  Startled, Samara gaped at him. “What?”

  “We’re co-workers, you and me. I was an education manager before this too. We’ve got two more kids coming at noon. One for you; one for me. I think one needs reading and the other needs writing.”

  Samara went back to the table and checked her notes from Karale. Sure enough, there were two kids slotted for appointments with her. She just thought she’d work with them both. Taye came in the front door and plopped his own notebook on the table next to hers.

  “So when’d you get here, Samara?”

  “Back in July.”

  “I came in August. Man, what a weird life to get used to, huh? After how we used to live?”

  Samara nodded, aware that he thought she was a Three. It made sense; it was highly unusual for her, as a Five, to have gotten a job as an education manager. But even that, the job assignment officers had decided, had been too good for her. Not a mistake. They’d never admit to making a mistake. But they did correct their little surprise as soon as they could by making her the tutor to an entire juvenile prison population. That had been where she had met and ultimately freed Jude. They would never have let her in a real school, where she’d have taught alongside Threes, like Taye. Something about this made her angry, that he was still carrying around this false and unfair ranking system that had governed their lives before St. Mary’s. She didn’t feel like engaging. As much as she’d wished for more friends before this moment, she wished he’d act as cold and uninterested as the rest of the people here. She said nothing and took out the book she’d planned to use for the student coming in a few minutes.

  “Which one would you like to take, the reader or the writer?”

  “Oh, you can have the writer,” he said, showing his brilliant teeth. Samara wondered if he’d bothered to notice hers yet. They weren’t terrible, but one look at her mouth would tell him that she was no Three.

  The door opened again and two people walked inside: a little girl, about ten years old, and…

  “Tommy?” asked Samara with a raised eyebrow. “Is something wrong?”

  “Hello, Samara. Taye.” Tommy nodded at them and twisted the ends of his scarf in his hands. “No, nothing’s wrong…well, something…see, Karale and Danovan want me to get some help with my writing.”

  Taye flashed his bright teeth at the little girl and beckoned her to the open book on the table. Samara worked with Tommy for a long hour in which she discovered that he wasn’t a terrible writer, apart from the misspellings and the slippery grip on grammar and the tendency to use exclamation points in place of almost any other form of punctuation. When she suggested they try another exercise, he groaned.

  “I don’t understand why I have to sit here like a schoolboy. Karale and Danovan do most of the writing, anyway,” he said.

  Samara kept her face toward the table. “What kinds of things do they write?”

  “Letters. To this congressman at Metrics. I don’t remember his name. They’re always calling him the Bird, though. He wants to help us but we’re trying to figure out just how.”

  Taye looked up sharply. Tommy flinched. “I mean,” Tommy said, “I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

  “We won’t.” Samara put her hand on Tommy’s. “Your writing is really pretty good; it only needs some tweaks here and there. In a few weeks, you’ll be writing those letters yourself.”

  Tommy went back his exercises with a light blush on his forehead. Samara and Taye glanced at each other darkly while the little reader continued to butcher Harry Potter.

  After their students left, Samara and Taye folded the table and carried it off the side wall together.

  “Did you know that?” asked Taye.

  “That someone from Metrics knows we’re here?” asked Samara. “Not exactly. I did wonder how we were getting our supplies. I figured we were getting help from other chapters.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of the Red Sea. I don’t know much about the scope, but there have to be others around.”

  Taye shook his head. “There are no other chapters. No one else. We’re it. I’m almost positive that no one else survived the relocation.”

  Samara thought of those she knew who were not here. Nan. Lydia
. The two women who had saved her when she was stuck in a tree with a dislocated shoulder, who had sheltered and fed her and Bristol and Jude when they knew the risks they faced. She lowered her head and closed her eyes.

  Taye clasped his hands on both her shoulders. “We’ve all lost someone.”

  Samara stepped away and folded her chair. “It’s a problem that the leaders have been communicating with Metrics without telling us. We need to talk with them about it.”

  Taye snorted. “What we need are new leaders.”

  “Here?”

  “Here and there. Inside and out. Camp and country.”

  “I think Karele and Danovan are doing it this way just because it’s what we’re used to—following the directions of a closed group. We need to think of something else. Something more open to everyone.”

  Taye nodded. “Sounds messy.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you going to talk to them about it?”

  “I don’t see why not. Are you going to join me?”

  He stepped in front of her as if he were going to take her chair, but instead of taking it, he stayed standing with his hands on it. “Of course I will.”

  “Excuse me.”

  Samara dropped the chair. Denver stood in the doorway in a pink-and-yellow-striped apron over her coat.

  “Denver!” said Samara. “I didn’t see you come in.”

  “I noticed. We saved some food for you. It’s ready now.” Denver turned and left in one swift motion.

  Taye ambled over to collect his own book bag. “You coming?”

  “You can have mine. I’m going back to bed.”

  Samara was so tired that the skin around her eyes hurt, but she had so much more to do, much more to think about. Life was much more complicated than it had been an hour ago. She walked out the door, where her feet immediately hit the dirt road.

  Chapter Five

  Denver stood firm on her feet and twisted her torso from side to side. A warm front had moved in, but she was perpetually cold. She peeped over the side of the building, watching the field. Finally, a figure broke off from the road and walked in her direction. She kept watching it until she could see him grin at her.

  “Finally.” Stephen took Denver’s face in his hands, and she breathed in the solace of his kiss.

  “I’ve missed you,” said Denver.

  “I’ve missed you, too.” Stephen placed his hands on her hips and pulled her in tighter. Denver took a step back but kept her arms around him.

  “Not tonight.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think I’m sick.”

  “Sick?” Stephen frowned and put a hand on her forehead. “You don’t feel warm.”

  “It feels like a stomach bug, but it comes and goes.” She didn’t mention her other symptoms, mostly because they were hard to define—her skin was too sensitive now, to touch and to cold. She wanted to shed it, to cringe away from it and free herself from constant shivers. And she was extremely tired now, after doing mundane things like carrying a five-pound bag of flour across the kitchen floor, or walking five minutes to her dorm or the field. She was ashamed to admit it, but what she wanted more than anything these days was a good nap.

  “Have you been to the infirmary yet?”

  “No. I forgot we had one.”

  “Let’s go now. They might have something there to help. It might make it easier to sleep if your stomach’s been bothering you.”

  Denver smiled and slid her arm through his. They walked on the road, kicking pebbles now and then, until they got to the end of row of dorms.

  “I think it’s in this one.” Stephen pointed to one of the boys’ cabins.

  “In there?”

  “No, there’s an attachment to the back of it. We’ll go around.”

  The infirmary, tucked away behind the bustling dorm, was a pleasant little place. From the look of it, someone had taken considerable care to organize and tidy it. There was a row of shelves stocked scantily with bottles of liquid and tablets along the back wall, and two little twin beds on either side of those shelves, both made up with cheery yellow quilts and fluffy pillows. The corners of Denver’s mouth impulsively shot up. It was always good to see someone care.

  A door in the corner opened and a woman walked out, drying her hands on a tea towel. Denver recognized her tight gray curls from the mess hall line. She’d never bothered to wonder what her work assignment was. The little lady peered at them though half-moon glasses on a chain.

  “May I help you?”

  Stephen stepped forward and stretched out his hand. “Yes, I’m Stephen, and this is my wife, Denver. We think she has a stomach bug.”

  “But it comes and goes,” said Denver.

  “Please sit down,” the nurse gestured to one of the beds. “I’m Nurse Sue. I may have something for you, but I need to deliver some medicine to another dorm first. My little diabetes patient in Dorm Three. Can I ask you to wait here?”

  “My pleasure,” said Denver. As soon as it came out, she knew it was a weird thing to say—and still it was the truth. No room had felt more like home since she arrived here.

  Nurse Sue smiled. “Be right back. Lie down if you need to.”

  She walked out, and Denver lay back on the pillow, which sank under the weight of her head. She moaned. Stephen sat next to her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It just feels so comfortable. I could stay here forever.”

  “You seem exhausted.”

  “I am. And I’ve had a really strange day…” She turned her head back to him, but kept it on the pillow. “I’m sorry. I haven’t even asked how your day went.”

  He stroked her temple. “It was fine. Why was your day strange?”

  “I walked in on something I probably shouldn’t have seen.”

  “What?”

  “Samara.”

  “What was she doing?”

  “She was…just getting a little too close to another man. I didn’t recognize him. But they were definitely touching, and they seemed embarrassed that I saw.” Her eyes suddenly felt heavy. She shut them. “It was kind of exactly what I was hoping for—this kind of thing, something that would make Bristol break it off with her. But now I feel like I can’t be the one to tell Bristol. He knows I don’t trust her and it’ll just sound like I’m making it up. Even if he does believe me, I don’t want him to be hurt.”

  “That makes sense. Are you even sure about what you saw? Were they doing anything…incriminating?”

  She yawned. “I can’t be sure.”

  “I’d just leave it for now. He’s crazy about her. If she’s going to break his heart, she should be the one to do it.”

  “I don’t want to see her play my brother for a fool.”

  “I don’t want to see her play my brother-in-law for a fool.”

  Denver smiled and opened her eyes. Stephen touched his nose to hers. “Let’s leave it for now,” he said. “Unless…”

  “What?”

  “Unless you want to talk to her. Confront her about what you saw and what you’re afraid of.”

  Denver thought for a moment. Ordinarily, that was exactly what she would do. But the plain truth of the matter was that she didn’t have the strength. She could barely keep her eyes open. Maybe after some medicine and a few days of rest…

  “Then again,” Stephen said, “is it possible you misunderstood?”

  “No.” Denver’s answer came out as a defiant impulse.

  “No, you never misunderstand anyone.”

  Denver opened her eyes to find him grinning at her. She frowned deeper to mirror his face inversely. “That was different,” she said. “You were a literal secret agent. How was I supposed to know?”

  When they’d first married, Denver had thought Stephen was nothing but a common consumer, playing games on his watch all day and expecting her to feed and clean up after him. When Bristol had gone missing, Stephen had revealed to her that he was a volunteer with the Re
d Sea, the organization that helped the Unregistered across the border so they could live free. When Metrics had discovered him, the two of them had escaped together, camping in the woods with almost no supplies and no way of finding Bristol. Somehow, they’d found him anyway, along with Samara and Jude. Though she’d never admit it, despite the danger, and the cold, and the uncertainty, the months they’d been here in the cold valley had been among the happiest in her life so far. Stephen was here. And whatever she said, even if she didn’t mean it, Stephen understood her.

  Nurse Sue walked back in, this time fixing the lid back onto a small box. “All done! Now. Oh.” She seemed surprised to see the two of them lying so close to each other on the bed. Stephen scrambled onto his feet.

  The nurse stuck a thermometer in Denver’s mouth and placed a stethoscope on her chest. “No apologies, my dears; I’ve seen much worse. Now, deep breaths.”

  She moved the stereoscope around, then took the thermometer out of her mouth and glanced at it. “Hmm,” she said. “These stomach troubles…do they feel like sharp pains, or nausea?”

  “Nausea.”

  “When do you feel nauseous?”

  “Usually at work. I work in the kitchen here.”

  “Smelly work?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Denver, crinkling her nose. “The garlic smells terrible. And the garbage is getting worse. And even some things that don’t stink on the outside, they do here.”

  “Like what?”

  “Dried rice. Beans.”

  The nurse smiled. “People?”

  “Yes! Most of all. How did you know?”

  The nurse cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Tell me something, Denver. I have something in my bag, there on the shelf. What is it?”

  Denver looked at the shelf and saw the bag hanging from it. There was no way to tell what was inside by looking at it, but as soon as her nose turned into that direction, she involuntarily sniffed the air. “It’s an orange,” she said.

  Nurse Sue chuckled, reached into the bag, and handed her the orange. “Would you like it?”