Ourselves

by S. G. Redling

  Charles reached up to push the hair off of Tomas’s face. The tenderness of the gesture brought tears to both their eyes and Tatiana laughed.

  “You’ll never be able to deny each other, you two. Tomas, you inherited your grandfather’s tender heart and copious tears.”

  “I’ve given up fighting it, Grandma. It’s a losing battle.”

  “Good.” She patted his knee. “It’s a good quality. It’s one of the many reasons I fell in love with Charles all those years ago. The ability to be moved in a hard world is a sign of strength. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “You forgot to mention that he also inherited my good looks.”

  “That goes without saying, Charles.”

  “Speaking of good looks,” Charles tilted his head toward Stell, who relaxed on the living room couch, ignoring the glares from Aricelli, Louis, and Beth, who were busy cleaning up from the party. “Stell looks good.”

  “She’s kind of come into her own, you know?”

  “She’s acul ‘ad, no?” Tatiana smiled at Tomas’s surprise. “What? You think we’ve spent our whole life on Calstow Mountain? Tell me, Charles, who does she remind you of?”

  “I was thinking the same thing. Nadia. When your grandmother was at court, when we had only known each other a short while, she had a maid who was acul ‘ad. And let me tell you something, Tomas, in those days a poor Russian acul ‘ad was a black stone indeed.” His grandparents laughed, sharing the memory.

  “You never told me this, Grandma.”

  “There are many things I’ve never told you.” She slapped his knee. “And I’m not going to tell you tonight. Why are you changing the subject? We are here to talk about you.”

  “I’m sick of talking about me.” Tomas buried his head in his hands. “I’m sick of being me.”

  Tatiana rubbed his back. “You have chosen a very difficult path, a Storyteller advising the Council. But always remember, Tomas, the Council serves the Nahan, not the other way around. Never let the institution become more important than”—

  Tomas raised his head. “Please, Grandma, don’t start quoting Benjamin Franklin.”

  She patted his cheek. “Tomas, you are a good man. You are a man like your grandfather with a true heart and generous nature. Despite what you may believe, I’m not an anarchist. While I do believe your father, our son, has been too easily misled by his bureaucracy-loving wife,”—Tomas sighed but Tat forged ahead—“I understand the Council has done a great deal of good. This is not the aristocratic court of France; I know the world has changed a great deal. But we are still Nahan. We are still Ourselves, apart. And if we do not work as one for one another we will not survive.”

  Tomas wanted to close his eyes. He wanted Stell to get him away from this place. He loved his grandparents with all his heart but he knew that once his grandmother got on this topic, she could hold forth for some time. The words felt physically heavy against his ears. Still, this was his grandmother.

  “Yes, Grandma Tat, I know. I assume you’re going somewhere with this?”

  “I am. You remember Elmer Braddus, who grows those delicious Braeburn apples that you love so much.” Tomas nodded. There were miles of apple and pear farms around Calstow Mountain held and managed by a handful of Nahan families. “He came to us over the winter. He knows our Richard and Beth have connections to the Central Council. It seems someone has decided that the Council will be better served if ownership of the land is handed over to them and handled from their headquarters; that the profits of the orchards could be increased if the farming techniques were updated.”

  “Maybe they’re right,” Tomas said. “There are cooperative Nahan farms all over the country that turn a profit. There are scientists who know how to make crops disease-resistant.”

  “Tomas, these people have grown heirloom, heritage quality fruit for two centuries. They do not do it for money. They do it to sustain their lives and their land. They ask for very little help. Even if there were a way to do it ‘more efficiently,’ is efficiency the only goal of life? Or more money?”

  “But if they’ve asked for help—”

  “Then we should give it to them because we are Nahan and we take care of each other. Does this mean we force each other to live like Louis’s family? Or Aricelli’s? Or even our own? I have no interest in being an apple farmer but I have a great deal of interest in allowing an apple farmer to be. Do you understand what I’m saying, Tomas?”

  Tomas put his head down on his knees. “I do, Grandma. But I’ll ask you the same question I asked Stell. What do you want me to do about it?” Tatiana answered as Stell had.

  “The right thing.”

  Louis thumbed through a comic book. They were crowded into Tomas’s old bedroom, Louis and Aricelli on one twin bed; Tomas facing them on another. Stell lay on her stomach at the foot of Tomas’s bed pushing a yellow Matchbox car around in circles. Downstairs, they could hear Charles and Tatiana laughing with Beth and Richard.

  He hadn’t asked his friends to join him but after the party cleanup had finished, he and Louis had wandered up the stairs together. Aricelli followed, Stell behind her. Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to.

  Tomas was the Storyteller but Louis and Aricelli could read him like the comic book Louis flipped through. They knew he needed to be here, that he needed the silence.

  How many lifetimes had he spent in quiet suburban rooms like this, his cousin waiting, never losing his patience, for Tomas to ask him his questions? Tomas turned to Louis to explain everything—blood, girls, wet dreams, cars, how to pass algebra—every new discovery eased by his cousin’s experience and easy charm. And now? Now an ocean, a planet, a universe of knowledge had been crammed into his skull and where did he go? Back to his room, back to Louis and Aricelli and the memory of safety there.

  “They think there’s something wrong with me.”

  Tomas saw Louis struggle not to react. Aricelli looked up from reading over Louis’s shoulder. “What did they say?”

  Their attention felt like heat. “They didn’t say anything. They hid their . . . they didn’t say anything.” He stared at the illustrated panel Louis had stopped on, gunfire drawn as starbursts, the same yellows and reds of anxiety Dalle had masked.

  Louis kept his voice soft. “Then how do you know there’s something wrong?”

  “Dalle, my mentor, was hiding something from me.” Stell drew closer, rising to her knees beside him. “There was someone before me, an apprentice who didn’t . . . He was in the same program I am, doing the same training, and they said he couldn’t take it.”

  “And?” Louis asked. “You could take it, right? I mean, you graduated or whatever.”

  “It’s not like that. I’m not done. I don’t know if I’ll ever be done.” He finally met Louis’s eye. “And I think I screwed up by leaving the complex before I was supposed to. There was this other stuff they wanted me to do but I left.”

  “Why?”

  Tomas didn’t want to say the words aloud. “Because they were lying to me.”

  Stell leaned forward. “They lied to Adlai.”

  “You don’t know that, Stell. You only know what Adlai told you.” He saw Louis and Aricelli waiting for an explanation. “Adlai is Stell’s escort, her bodyguard, and his friend Hess is the one, the apprentice . . .”

  “The one who didn’t make it,” Louis said.

  “They hurt him.” Stell grabbed his leg. “Adlai said they hurt him and sent him away. The Council did, the Storytellers. They’re holding him prisoner.”

  “Stell—”

  “Tomas! You said he was hurt. You said—”

  “I said there was something wrong with him.”

  “So you think Adlai is lying?”

  “I don’t understand,” Aricelli said. “I thought once you were a Storyteller you could tell who was telling the truth.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Tomas said. “Truth is what we believe it to be. People can hide things if their reasons are strong enough to
them. Plus Adlai’s acul ‘ad so he’s really hard to read.”

  “Holy shit.” Louis leaned in. “He’s acul ‘ad?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Tomas until that moment how much their lives had parted paths. Storytellers and acul ‘ads and security systems were an everyday part of his life now. This wasn’t the case for his friends. He didn’t dare think how they would react when they learned that truth about Stell. “That’s not the point. Even if I could read him, the truth is fluid. He may really believe his friend is in danger, even if it’s not technically true. I know Stell believes it.”

  He saw the look his friends shared. Deciding between the reliability of Stell versus the Council whose boundaries they had lived within their entire lives wasn’t a difficult choice. Stell didn’t seem to care about their verdict; she looked only to Tomas.

  “What would you want someone to say to me, Tomas? If you were missing, if you were hurt after all they put you through? If I saw you carried out screaming and I never saw you again?” She squeezed his knee. “What would you want someone to say to me then? Or to Louis or Aricelli? Or to your parents, your grandparents?”

  He saw the answer in her face. “I’d want them to say they’d do anything to save me. But Stell, you didn’t see this guy. You didn’t feel him. He pulled bees from his throat.”

  Louis and Aricelli drew back as one. This wasn’t some little kid crisis. This wasn’t a bully on the playground or a dreaded invitation to a dance. Tomas lived in a different world now, behind the scenes of the authority that had shaped their lives. How could he ask them for help?

  “All right, you guys, bees aside, let’s stay on point. Are you absolutely certain this guy is still alive?” Tomas nodded, relieved at Aricelli’s take-charge attitude. Louis too seemed to relax with the conversation headed toward practical matters. “What are we looking for? First, we need information. We need to find out if this guy is actually being detained. If he is, we need to find out details about the facility. Can we visit him? Is he there against his will? If he is being imprisoned, what can be done to get him out? And is that a good idea?”

  Tomas drummed his fingers on his knees. “What kind of place could hold him? It couldn’t just be a regular kind of facility. Remember what happened at the Irish pub? And that was after just a few weeks of training. This guy could be way better at manipulation than I was. The only people who could hold him would be Storytellers.”

  “Would they?” Aricelli asked. “Would they hold him?”

  “Not against his will,” Tomas said, hoping they felt more convinced than he did. “Not unless, you know, there was no choice. If he was a danger to himself.”

  Louis spoke up. “Okay, let’s look at it this way. Regardless of where this dude is, there is one surefire way of never finding him and that’s to call anyone on the Council and say, ‘Oh, by the way, where’s that Storyteller prison place?’ If the Storytellers want it to be a secret, the Council will make sure you never find it.”

  “He’s right,” Aricelli said. “I don’t know what kind of hoodoo-voodoo the Storytellers use, Tomas, but this is the Council we’re talking about. It’s power plays and maneuvering. Information is like money. You gotta have it to make it and if you don’t have it, you gotta fake it until you do.”

  Tomas felt the familiar sensation of being in over his head. “Are you guys going to tell me what this means?”

  Louis slapped his knee. “It means, bro, you’re going to go back into that complex and act like you already know all you need to know about this Hess guy and his incarceration. You’re going to need all your best bullshitting skills.”

  He let his head hang. “I don’t even have the words to explain to you the impossibility of bullshitting my mentor, Dalle. When I tell you he’s inside my head . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Let’s just say these aren’t drunken sorority girls we’re dealing with.”

  “You just head back to the complex and do your thing.” Louis used the same big-brother tone he’d used to guide Tomas all their lives. “My family is in security; Aricelli’s is money; yours is real estate. We have channels in the Council. Let us work that side. For now, find out what you can about this Hess guy without looking like you’re pumping them for information.”

  Aricelli reached across and took his hand. “We’re your friends, Tomas. We’ve always been. If this is important to you, it’s important to us.”

  Tomas excused himself to make his goodbyes to his parents and grandparents. Once he and Stell had left the room, Louis lay back on the bed. “You’re being very helpful in all this.”

  “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Questioning the Council to help Stell’s friend? I didn’t know you girls were so close.”

  “Grow up, Louis. If there is something unethical going on inside the Council, I think we have an obligation to do what we can to uncover it.”

  “Hmm, when you put it that way, I can see you’re right.” He leaned in close and tapped a finger on her forehead. “Thank you, Alien Pod Person. Now, may I speak with Aricelli?”

  She brushed his hand away with a laugh. “What?”

  “Unethical? Your father is the king of unethical and he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what the Council does. He’s in it for power and money and he’s good at it. And you are a chip off the old block. You want me to believe you’re rushing in to right a wrong? Save it for Heritage School.”

  “Hey, what kind of person do you think I am?”

  “Everyone else may have you pegged for a beauty queen but I know you are a born tu Bith, the original moneymaker. And if I thought for a second you were drinking the Council’s Kool-Aid I’d have you committed. Look, I’ve had to hop-step to that ‘Council Knows Best’ crap with my parents my whole life. I don’t care what the Council does and neither do you, except for how it can work to your advantage. So why this urge to start crusading all of a sudden?”

  “Do I have to say it out loud?” Aricelli rose with a huff and flopped down on the other bed. “Come on, Louis. You heard Tomas. He saw this guy pulling bees out of his throat?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that Tomas is sweet. You’ve protected him his entire life. You know I love him too but he’s not the toughest person you’ll ever meet. Maybe the reason there are so few Storytellers is because a lot of them crack up.”

  “Aricelli, don’t.”

  “I don’t give a shit about some kooky friend of Stell’s. If this place exists, we need to find it before Tomas winds up there.”

  They rode back to Chicago in silence. All the talking, all the noise fell away behind them with the miles. As hard as he tried, however, Tomas couldn’t shake the metallic twist of anxiety that ran down his neck. Stell sighed and kissed his hand.

  “Thank you for trying to find Adlai’s friend.”

  “I’m glad I can make Adlai happy.”

  “And me.”

  He leaned his head back against the leather. “And you. Especially you.”

  As Carlson pulled up before their apartment building, Tomas felt that twinge of anxiety again. He searched his mind for what could be triggering this metallic twisting in his neck but before he could come up with anything, someone tapped on the driver’s window.

  The window beside Stell lowered. It was Adlai.

  She brightened and reached for the door handle but Tomas stopped her hand.

  “We just got home. It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Nature of the beast.” Adlai rested his muscular forearms on the window. “I’m afraid most of our work is done in the dark.”

  For one terrible moment, Tomas saw himself driving his fist into the smirking face of the acul ‘ad at the window. He could feel the electricity coming off of Stell as she thought of heading into the night with Adlai. Tomas wanted to demand that she stay but knew such a move was not only futile, it would make him look pathetic to both Stell and Adlai.

  “Yeah, if you’ve got to work, by all means, work
.”

  Stell kissed the side of his face then climbed out of the car. “I won’t be that late, I promise. Oh, but you’ll probably already be at the complex, won’t you? So, I’ll see you tomorrow, yes?” She didn’t wait for his answer, but climbed on the back of Adlai’s bike. Tomas pulled the door shut behind her but not before the motorcycle’s exhaust fumes tainted the air within the car.

  Carlson cleared his throat. “Would you like me to get your bags, sir?”

  “No.” He looked up at the darkened windows of their empty apartment. “Let’s just go on over to the complex. No point in going home now.”

  Tomas sighed as Carlson pulled out into traffic. It was such a stupid situation. What did he expect? Of course Stell would want to ride off with Adlai. He was dangerous and muscular and unpredictable and so fucking muscular. He certainly was not constantly exhausted and pulled in a thousand different directions and counted on to always do the exact right thing at the exact right moment for the whole world at the drop of a hat.

  “Excuse me, sir? Mr. Desara?” Carlson broke Tomas’ torturous train of thought. “Um, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something. It’s, well, it’s not exactly within my job description.”

  Carlson struggled to find the words and Tomas watched the muscles in the man’s jaw work. Maybe it was a trick of the light in the dark car but there emerged around the driver a tangle of lines, like the cloud of dust that always followed Pigpen in the Peanuts cartoons. The driver was oblivious to their appearance and Tomas realized that Carlson was the source of the anxiety he had been feeling the entire drive.

  “I don’t want you to think that I eavesdrop because I don’t. I take my job very seriously, Mr. Desara, and I understand how sensitive the work at the complex is. I’m sixth-generation Kott and, believe me, I’m well aware of the importance of secrecy.”

  Tomas put his hand on the driver’s shoulder to reassure him. “I understand.”

  Carlson pulled off the road into the parking lot of a shopping center and turned to face him. “It’s about what you were talking about on the way out to Deerfield, about Mr. Hess. I drove for him like I do for you. For over a year. He was a great guy. I mean, he was really a pleasure to work for.” The tangle of lines around Carlson’s face twitched and darkened.