When I woke up, Mara was still gone. The door softly bumped against the threshold, keeping rhythm with the wind outside. Sunlight filtered through the windows, shedding murky light on the odd assortment of jars and containers that lined the shelves. I looked around. Mortar and pestles, crude knives and chopping blocks all sat on a table under the window. A dented, tarnished pot hung from a hook on the wall and on another shelf, some chipped bowls and cups.
They were scavengers, searching the Mountain for anything they could use. Their homes were a collection of artifacts. I could identify a few curiosities from Mae’s stories. Three books sat perched on a shelf, their covers disintegrating and pages yellowed with age. I peeked out the window. Sepp and Gideon sat on logs around the fire while Mara stirred what was inside a metal pot. She said she’d been waiting for me, but she’d made a life without me. She’d lied about what she’d done in the City, hiding who she was. What kind of a person was she, really?
I went back to the cot and lay down. I couldn’t go outside and sit with them, talk to Sepp as if he was normal, accept him as my brother. I pulled the blankets over my head and waited for sleep to come, a welcome reprieve from the anger and hurt that swirled dangerously close to the surface.
⌓
I woke to the bang of the door and the smell of food. Mara stood beside the cot with a bowl of soup in her hands. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said and set a bowl and wooden spoon down on the table.
Sliding the covers back, I planted my feet on the floor and tried to stand. But the room swayed and I had to sit down again. My knee didn’t throb anymore, but it was stiff and sore.
“I changed the dressing on your knee,” Mara said. “It’s healing well.”
“It’s not infected?”
Mara shook her head. “Things that would kill a Citizen won’t affect you the same way. Look,” Mara bent down and untied the bandage. The cut underneath was covered with a strong-smelling paste, green and grainy. She wiped it off to show me how it had healed. “The other Citizens wouldn’t have survived a cut like that.” She pointed to the insect bites that covered my arms. “And mosquito bites could kill them. Or bacteria in water. Heatstroke,” Mara shook her head. “So many things.”
“You survived,” I pointed out.
Mara nodded. “My training helped. I was careful. I brought medicines with me from the City to fight infection. I’d studied plants, I knew which ones could help. Over the years, my immunity has improved.”
I watched her warily as she tied the cloth around my knee. “You should eat.”
Heat from the soup radiated through the wooden bowl. I tasted a spoonful and grimaced, surprised by the sharp taste. “We flavour our food with oregano and garlic,” she said, watching my reaction. “It grows wild out here.”
I nodded and tried another bite. Chunks of sweet potato, corn and carrot floated in a dark broth. Each bite was a different explosion of flavor. Sweet potatoes in the City were bland, but these popped and the carrots tasted rich.
“Did you like it?” Mara grinned as I drank the last drops of broth.
I nodded.
“Sepp made it,” she said.
His name left a bitter aftertaste. I put the bowl down and wiped off the last drops of liquid with the back of my hand. “He can cook?” I asked.
“Yes. Of course.”
Tears prickled in my eyes at the sharpness of her tone. I rubbed the pulse point in my finger. The raised bump in my skin was the only tangible memory of the City.
How long had I been gone? Three days? My escape and the journey across the valley seemed like a dream—foggy and distant. And out of my hazy memory, two figures I wanted to forget emerged. The overseers.
Was it possible they were still on the Mountain? I stared at the pulse point on my finger. I’d had the chance to tell Ezekiel about them and I hadn’t. What would he do if I admitted I’d lied to him? Beat me like he had Rufus? Throw me out of the camp? I’d have to go back to the City and live as a prisoner. But before I could get anything out, there was a commotion outside. Gideon and Sepp were shouting and there were other voices too. Mara turned and flew out the door.
“Come out, refugee!” someone yelled.
I peeked through the window and counted six people standing across the fire from Sepp and Gideon. One of them was Nadia. A few of the males had long sticks sharpened to a point. I ducked down, but felt ridiculous. Obviously, they knew I was in Mara’s dwelling, otherwise why would they be there? I looked around for something I could use to defend myself. A knife, its blade like a cleaver, lay on a cutting board. I grabbed it and tucked it up the sleeve of my shirt.
“We know you’re in there!” one of the males called.
I pushed the door open and tried to look as intimidating as I could. Gideon and Sepp were standing now. There wasn’t much Sepp could do to help, but I appreciated the scowl he gave in the direction of their voices.
Gideon frowned at the Prims. “Here she is. What do you want with her?”
“She’s not welcome here,” Nadia said.
Maybe I should have been scared. After all, they’d come armed and showed no signs of backing down. But I had Gideon and Mara on my side. And I knew I’d done nothing to deserve their animosity.
Nadia should have given classes on glaring techniques. She fired a scathing look in my direction that made me flush. “City people don’t belong on the Mountain. You’re feeding her and giving her clothes and medicine and you don’t know anything about her. You’re both letting her sleep in your shelters!” She held up her spear and pointed it accusingly at Mara and Gideon. “After all the City’s done to us, we shouldn’t be protecting the refugees, we should be throwing them to the beasts.”
A storm of anger brewed in me. I’d done nothing to the Prims. Her hatred was unfounded. Mara clutched my hand and I bit back the words I wanted to shout at Nadia.
“I’m not the only one who thinks this way. I’m just the only one willing to say it to your face.” Nadia continued. There was grumbling approval from the others, including two young males with the same coppery orange hair as Nadia. They must have been the brothers Gideon had told me about.
Mara came to my defence first. “Kaia had nothing to do with what happened to your father. She wasn’t even born when he was captured.”
I gave her a sidelong glance. How could she look Nadia and her brothers in the eye knowing their father had been her captive?
“She’s one of us, you know. She’s part-Prim, like me,” Sepp spoke in her direction and his words silenced all the mutterings. “It’s how she’s survived outside of the City this long.”
Nadia’s face flushed a dark red. She turned her glare to Mara. “Is it true?”
Mara nodded. “She was the first. There were no aberrations so she was allowed to live as a Citizen.”
Nadia glowered. “Part-Prim doesn’t make you one of us. You’re still from the City.” Her words were laced with contempt.
“Why didn’t she leave with you?” One of Nadia’s brothers asked the question, but the way Gideon listened, I could tell he’d been wondering about it too. Mara had told them her mate had left with her, so the truth about Sy couldn’t be used. Mara opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“Mae,” I blurted. “She left me with my elder, my grandmother. As she aged, she’d need someone to energy-share with her, or she’d be balanced.”
Mara squeezed my hand in gratitude.
I took a step closer to Nadia and met her gaze. I’d never condoned what the City had done. I hadn’t even known about it until Mara confessed the truth. The City had too many secrets and I didn’t want to be part of any of them.
“I left the City because the Council gave the order to balance my grandmother. Losing her was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. Harder even than escaping and getting to the Mountain.” I paused. Sepp, Gideon a
nd Mara were listening too. “I couldn’t stay in the City without her. That’s why I came to the Mountain. I keep wondering, what’s worse? Knowing a parent and losing them, or never knowing them at all?”
“You expect us to feel sorry for you?” Nadia asked. The Prims flanking her didn’t look as hostile, though one of the females frowned as I spoke.
I shook my head. “No. We have more in common than you think. We’ve both been wronged by the City.” There was a long pause. Nadia’s brothers looked uneasy, waiting for their sister to say something.
Mara broke the silence. “Would anyone like tea?” she asked, her voice shrill with nerves.
Nadia snorted and shook her head. “I’ll never sit at a fire with her.” She turned on her heel and marched away from Mara’s hut. The rest followed her.
Mara shook her head after Nadia. “Don’t take it to heart. She’s had a hard life. After her mother died, she had to look after the boys. I think deep down, she’s waiting for her father to return.”
“How can I not take it to heart? She hates me. And she’s poisoning others against me too.”
Gideon gave me a somber look. “Letting Mara remove your pulse point would help. If the others saw you were ready to take it out, it would make it easier for them to trust you.”
I wondered if giving up my old life was the right choice. I didn’t know if I could go back to the City knowing what I did, but Mara wasn’t the person I thought she’d be. Was living as a Prim the life I wanted? What if Gideon was wrong? What if I removed my pulse point and they still didn’t accept me as one of them?
My head swam with indecision. “I’ll think about it,” was all I could say. “Thanks for the soup,” I said and made my way back to Mara’s shelter. Curling up on the cot, I let their whispered conversation float me back to sleep.
Lev
I woke with a start, jolting to consciousness. Then, I was falling. I landed with a thud on the ground, the wind knocked out of me. I rolled over to my back and groaned.
I looked up into the tree above me. In a foggy memory, I remembered being too scared to sleep on the ground, fearful of the beasts. A quick zap of static shot through my ear. And then I felt it, barely discernible at first. My pulse point was beating! I held it up in the shadowy light of the forest. After days of being untethered, I was connected again. From the tip of my finger, the hologram appeared.
A cramping pain ripped through my stomach. I doubled over, sweating, then turned and vomited. When I looked back the hologram was gone. “No!” I shouted. Holding up my finger, I willed the hologram to appear again but the air in front of me stayed empty. I held up my finger again and again, but the beat of the pulse point was gone. Maybe I’d imagined it. My senses, along with my body, were failing me.
It was hopeless. I was sick and alone. Raf was dead. I had no way of finding Kaia. She could be anywhere on the Mountain. Tar had said to do whatever it took to survive, but I didn’t know what that was. How could anyone survive out here?
I looked around the forest scanning the trees for movement. That’s when I saw it, a stack of stones shaped like a human. It had two legs standing firm on the ground and a long rock for a body, topped with a rounded stone for the head. It was a sign. Behind it was a path, cut into the forest. A wave of relief washed over me.
Just getting to my feet sapped me of energy. I staggered past the stone figure and lurched from tree to tree. My stomach rolled. Dizzy spells and nausea made it hard to walk without tripping over roots. When I came to a fork in the path, another stone man showed me the way. I clutched my knife in my hands, willing myself to be ready for what lay ahead of me.
⌓
I pulled myself up to all fours and then stood on weak legs. A wave of dizziness washed over me. I collapsed to the ground. My head spun and I ached with hunger. Every limb was weak and trembling with exhaustion.
Kaia. A hazy memory of her floated into my mind. I needed to find her. I didn’t remember why. I wanted to remember why and slapped my forehead, trying to beat it into my head. She was why I’d come outside. I stood up and stumbled towards the tree, resting against it. Not far away was water. I could smell it. Moving towards it, I fell on my knees, cupped my hands and scooped up what I could.
My reflection shimmered in the water. I looked nothing like I had when I left. The outside was eating away at me. I was becoming a hybrid like the beasts. What state would I be in when I returned to the City? Could I go back there? I’d have to face Tar knowing what she’d done to Kellen. And worse, knowing what I’d done to Raf. Raf had accused me of being too soft, too much like Kellen. I snorted out loud. Raf’s death showed the horrifying truth: I was more like Tar. My stomach turned. The water I’d just drunk spewed onto the ground.
Tar couldn’t have known that sending me outside would do in days what she’d been trying to do for years, but that was what had happened. Tar’s DNA had surfaced. I was as much a monster as she was.
Kaia
When I woke up, it wasn’t Mara in the hut with me, but Sepp. I hugged the blankets tighter, startled. “You’re awake,” he said, tilting his head in my direction.
I nodded, realized the futility of that, and cleared my throat. “Yes.”
“Ma asked me to watch you.” He smiled at his joke.
He came closer, feeling for the chair. When he found it, he used his hands as a guide to find the back and then the seat. “I made something for you.” He reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a cord. Hanging from the bottom of it was a whistle, like the one he’d made for Gideon. “Here. Take it.”
I reached out for it. “Thank you,” I murmured.
“It’s a raven,” he said. “Ezekiel thinks they bring good luck.”
“It’s like the one in the place where the elders meet.”
He nodded. “Do you have them in the City?”
“No. All our birds are small. We need them to pollinate the plants and eat insects.” I studied the carving, remembering the bird that had attacked me. “I saw a bird even bigger than the raven when I was in the valley.”
He nodded. “A desert hawk. They’re hunters.”
“How do you carve them if you’ve never seen one?” I asked.
“I’ve touched them, dead ones anyway. My fingers remember.”
I put the cord around my neck and brought the whistle to my lips. Three holes on the tube made the same high-pitched noise as Gideon’s had.
“If you’re in danger, blow the whistle.”
“Thank you,” I said again.
“What do you look like?” The abruptness of his question caught me off guard. I’d never had to describe myself before. The way I looked now was different than the version of me that had existed in the City. “Is your hair long like Ma’s?” he asked.
“No, it’s short. And curls around my face.”
He smiled at this. “Short?”
“In the City, we don’t wear our hair long. It gets harvested for other purposes, sometimes woven into twine.”
“And your eyes,” he prompted.
“Blue.”
“Blue,” he repeated with wonder. “Blue is cool, like water. What about the rest of you?
“I’m thin, like everyone in the City. My nose is sort of big for my face, I’ve never liked it. It looks a lot like yours.”
Sepp laughed. “You think my nose is ugly?”
“It looks better on you.”
He held his hands out, chest height. “Can I touch your face? It helps make a picture in my mind.”
I hesitated, and in the brief moment of silence, his face fell. “Never mind.”
“No, it’s all right.” I said and braced myself for his touch.
Sepp’s fingers came towards my face and I held my breath. He started at my temples, running them down towards my jawbone. “You have cheekbones like Ma,” he said with a smile. “And
your nose, it does feel like mine.” I sat still while he finished his examination, the warmth of his fingers leaving a trail on my skin.
The door on the hut opened and Mara appeared. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise and then her face broke into a delighted smile when she saw the two of us sitting so close.
Sepp’s hands dropped to his lap.
“What do you think? Does she look like you?” Mara asked Sepp.
He gave a shy smile. “More like you,” he replied.
She sat down and stared at us in astonishment. “Here you are,” she said, and her voice broke. “Both of you, with me. It’s—it’s more than I ever hoped for.” Mara’s smile was genuine. With all my heart, I wanted to believe her. For a fleeting moment, I saw a flash of Mae in the tilt of Mara’s head and the way her eyes crinkled. I waited for the sharp sting that thinking about Mae usually brought, but it didn’t come.
Maybe I could make a life here with the Prims. It would mean letting go of my ties to the City and accepting Sepp—not as a deviant, but as a brother. I wouldn’t just have to see past Mara’s lies, I’d have to help her keep them.
Lev
I’d dragged myself as far down the path as I could before the night had closed in on me. A pit at the foot of a dead tree had become my refuge. I lay curled up like a bug and every hour that went by left me weaker. In one hand, I clutched my knife and in the other I held my lightstick. It kept fading. I was too weak to produce enough energy to power it.
In the stillness, I felt my pulse point start to beat. The static of the newsfeed filled my head. I thought it would buzz and then fade away like the other times. Instead, the reception grew clearer. I held up my finger and the hologram appeared. There was a message from Tar.
“Tar,” I whimpered. She’d found me.
Her image spoke to me. “You are ordered to return at once. We have sent another team out to continue your mission. Failure to comply will result in punishment.” The loop ran through her words again. I drank them in greedily, they filled my head.
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