Michael thought he should probably stay where he was, with one of the cells acting up. Night was also the best time for the radio. But he hadn’t eaten all day, and at the thought of warm food, his stomach let loose an empty rumble.
“You mind, Elton?”
The old man shrugged. “I know where to find you if I need you. You go now if you like.”
“You want me to bring you something?” Sara offered as Michael was rising from his chair. “We’ve got plenty.”
But Elton shook his head, as he always did. “Not tonight, thanks.” He took the earphones from their place on the counter and held them up. “I’ve got the whole wide world for company.”
Michael and his sister stepped out into the lights. After so many hours in the dim hut, Michael had to pause on the step and blink the glare away. They moved down the path past the storage sheds, toward the pens; the air was rich with the organic funk of animals. He could hear the bleating of the herd and, as they walked, the nickering of horses from the stables. Continuing onto the narrow path that edged the field, underneath the south wall, Michael could see the runners moving back and forth along the catwalks, their shapes silhouetted against the spots. Michael saw Sara watching also, her eyes distant and preoccupied, shining with reflected light.
“Don’t worry,” Michael said. “He’ll be fine.”
His sister didn’t respond; he wondered if she’d heard him. They said nothing more until they reached the house. At the kitchen pump, Sara washed up while Michael lit the candles; she stepped out onto the back porch and returned a moment later, swinging a good-sized jackrabbit by the ears.
“Flyers,” Michael said, “where’d you get him?”
Sara’s mood had lifted; her face wore a proud smile. Michael could see the wound where Sara’s arrow had skewered the animal through the throat.
“Upper Field, just above the pits. I was riding along and there he was, right out in the open.”
How long had it been since Michael had eaten rabbit? Since anyone had even seen a rabbit? Most of the wildlife was long gone, except for the squirrels, which seemed to multiply even faster than the virals could kill them off, and the smaller birds, the sparrows and wrens, which they either didn’t want or couldn’t catch.
“You want to clean him?” Sara asked.
“I’m not even sure I’d remember how,” Michael confessed.
Sara made a face of exasperation and drew her blade from her belt. “Fine, make yourself useful and set the fire.”
They made the rabbit into a stew, with carrots and potatoes from the bin in the cellar, and cornmeal to thicken the sauce. Sara claimed to remember their father’s recipe, but Michael could tell she was guessing. It didn’t matter; soon the savory aroma of cooking meat was bubbling from the kitchen hearth, filling the whole house with a cozy warmth that Michael hadn’t felt in a long time. Sara had taken the empty skin out to the yard to scrape it while Michael tended the stove, waiting for her return. He had bowls and spoons set when she stepped back inside, wiping her hands on a rag.
“You know, I know you’re not going to listen to me, but you and Elton should be careful.”
Sara knew all about the radio; the way she came in and out of the Lighthouse, it had been impossible to avoid this. But he had kept the rest from her.
“It’s just a receiver, Sara. We’re not even transmitting.”
“What all do you listen to out there, anyway?”
Sitting at the table, he offered a shrug, hoping to kill the conversation as fast as possible. What was there to say? He was looking for the Army. But the Army was dead. Everyone was dead, and the lights were going out.
“Just noise, mostly.”
She was looking at him closely, her hands on her hips as she stood with her back to the sink, waiting him out. When Michael said nothing more, she sighed and shook her head.
“Well, don’t get caught,” his sister said.
They ate without speaking at the table in the kitchen. The meat was a little stringy but so delicious Michael could barely stop himself from moaning as he chewed. Usually he didn’t go to bed until after dawn, but he could have lain down right there at the table, his head cradled in his folded arms, and fallen instantly asleep. There was something familiar as well—not just familiar but also a little sad—about eating jack stew at the table. Just the two of them.
He lifted his eyes to find Sara’s looking back at him.
“I know,” she said. “I miss them too.”
He wanted to tell her then. About the batteries, and the logbook, and their father, and what he’d known. Just to have one other person carry this knowledge. But this was a selfish wish, Michael knew, nothing he could actually allow himself to do.
Sara pushed back from the table and carried their dishes to the pump. When she was finished washing up, she filled an earthenware pot with the leftover stew and wrapped it with a piece of heavy cloth to keep it warm.
“You taking that to Walt?” Michael asked.
Walter was their father’s older brother. As the Storekeeper, he was in charge of Share, a member of the Board of Trade, and Household too—the oldest living Fisher—a three-legged stool of responsibilities that made him one of the most powerful citizens of the Colony, second only to Soo Ramirez and Sanjay Patal. But he was also a widower who lived alone—his wife, Jean, had been killed on Dark Night—and he liked the shine too much and often neglected to eat. When Walt wasn’t in the Storehouse, he could usually be found fussing with the still he kept in the shed behind his house, or else passed out somewhere inside.
Sara shook her head. “I don’t think I could face Walt right now. I’m taking it to Elton.”
Michael watched her face. He knew she was thinking of Peter again. “You should get some rest. I’m sure they’re okay.”
“They’re late.”
“Just a day. It’s routine.”
His sister said nothing. It was terrible, Michael thought, what love could do to a person. He couldn’t see the sense in it.
“Look, Lish is riding with them. I’m sure they’re safe.”
Sara scowled, looking away. “It’s Lish I’m worried about.”
She headed first to the Sanctuary, as she often did when sleep eluded her. Something about seeing the children, tucked in their beds. She didn’t know if it made her feel better or worse. But it made her feel something, besides the hollow ache of worry.
She liked to recall her own days there as a Little, when the world seemed like a safe place, even a happy place, and all there was to concern her was when her parents would come to visit, or if Teacher was in a good mood that day or not, and who was friends with whom. For the most part, it hadn’t seemed odd that she and her brother lived in the Sanctuary and their parents somewhere else—she’d never known a different existence—and at night when her mother or father or the two of them together came to say good night to her and Michael, she never thought to ask them where they went when the visit was over. We have to go now, they’d say, when Teacher announced it was time, and that one word, go, became the whole of the situation in Sara’s mind, and probably Michael’s too: parents came, and stayed for a bit, and then they had to go. Many of her best memories of her parents came from those brief bedtime visits when they would read her and Michael a story or just tuck them into their cots.
And then one night she’d ruined it, quite by accident. Where do you sleep? she asked her mother as she was preparing to depart. If you don’t sleep here, with us, where do you go? And when Sara asked this, something seemed to fall behind her mother’s eyes, like a shade being quickly drawn down a window. Oh, her mother said, gathering her expression into a smile that Sara detected as false, I don’t sleep, not really. Sleep is something for you, Little Sara, and for your brother, Michael. And the look on her mother’s face as she said these words was the first time, Sara now believed, that she’d glimpsed the terrible truth.
It was true, what everyone said: you hated Teacher for telling you. How Sara ha
d loved Teacher, until that day. As much as she loved her own parents, maybe even more. Her eighth birthday: she knew something would happen, something wonderful, that the children who turned eight went someplace special, but nothing more specific than that. The ones who returned—to visit a younger sibling or to have Littles of their own—were older, so much time having passed that they had become different people entirely, and where they’d been and what they’d done was a secret you couldn’t know. It was precisely because it was a secret that it was so special, this new place that awaited outside the walls of the Sanctuary. Anticipation gathered inside her as her birthday approached. So keen was her excitement that never did it occur to her to wonder what would happen to Michael without her; his own day would come. You were warned by Teacher never to talk about this, but of course the Littles did, when Teacher wasn’t around. In the washroom or dining hall or at night in the Big Room, whispers passing up and down the lines of cots, the talk was always of release and who was next in line. What was the world like, outside the Sanctuary? Did people live in castles, like the people in books? What animals would they find, and could they speak? (The caged mice Teacher kept in the classroom were, to a one, discouragingly silent.) What wonderful foods were there to eat, what wonderful toys to play with? Never had Sara been so excited, waiting for this glorious day when she would step into the world.
She awoke on the morning of her birthday feeling as if she were floating on a cloud of happiness. And yet somehow she would have to contain this joy until rest time; only then, when the Littles were asleep, would Teacher take her to the special place. Though no one said as much, all through morning meal and circle time she could tell that everyone was delighted for her, except for Michael, who did nothing to hide his envy, grumpily refusing to speak with her. Well, that was Michael. If he couldn’t be happy for her, she wasn’t going to let it spoil her special day. It wasn’t until after lunch, when Teacher called everyone around to say goodbye, that she began to wonder if maybe he knew something she didn’t. What is it, Michael? asked Teacher. Can’t you say goodbye to your sister, can’t you be happy for her? And Michael looked at her and said, It’s not what you think, Sara, then hugged her quickly and ran from the room before she could say a word.
Well, that was strange, she’d thought at the time, and still did, even now, all these years gone by. How had Michael known? Much later, when the two of them were alone again, she’d remembered this scene and asked him about it. How did you know? But Michael could only shake his head. I just did, he said. Not the details, but the kind of thing it was. The way they spoke to us, Mom and Dad, at night, tucking us in. You could see it in their eyes.
But back then, the afternoon of her release, with Michael darting away and Teacher taking her hand, she hadn’t wondered for long. Just chalked it up to Michael being Michael. The final goodbyes, the embraces, the feeling of the moment arriving: Peter was there, and Maus Patal, and Ben Chou and Galen Strauss and Wendy Ramirez and all the rest, touching her, saying her name. Remember us, everyone said. She was holding the bag that contained her things, her clothing and slippers and the little rag doll that she’d had since she was small—you were allowed to take one toy—and Teacher took her by the hand and led her out from the Big Room, into the little courtyard ringed by windows where the children played when the sun was high in the sky, with the swings and the seesaw and the piles of old tires to climb, and through another door into a room she’d never seen before. Like a classroom but empty, the shelves barren, no pictures on the walls.
Teacher sealed the door behind them. A curious and premature pause; Sara had expected more. Where was she going? she asked Teacher. Would it be a long journey? Was someone coming for her? How long was she to wait here, in this room? But Teacher seemed not to hear these questions. She crouched before her, positioning her large, soft face close to Sara’s. Little Sara, she asked, what do you suppose is out there, outside this building, beyond these rooms where you live? And what of the men you sometimes see, the ones who come and go at night, watching over you? Teacher was smiling, but there was something different about this smile, thought Sara, something that made her afraid. She didn’t want to answer, but Teacher was looking straight at her, her face expectant. Sara thought of her mother’s eyes, the night she’d asked her where she slept. A castle? she said, for in her sudden nervousness that was the only thing she could think of. A castle, with a moat? A castle, Teacher said. I see. And what else, Little Sara? The smile was suddenly gone. I don’t know, Sara said. Well, Teacher said, and cleared her throat. It’s not a castle.
And that was when she told her.
Sara hadn’t believed her at first. But not exactly that: she felt as if her mind had split in two, and one half, the half that didn’t know, that believed she was still a Little, sitting in circle and playing in the courtyard and waiting for her parents to tuck her in at night, was saying goodbye to the half that somehow always had. Like she was saying goodbye to herself. It made her feel dizzy and sick, and then she started to cry, and Teacher took her by the hand once more and led her down another hallway and out of the Sanctuary, where her parents were waiting for her, to take her home—the home that Sara and Michael lived in still, that she’d never known existed until that very day. It isn’t true, Sara was saying through her tears, it isn’t true. And her mother, who was crying too, picked her up and held her close, saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It is, it is, it is.
This was the memory that always replayed in her mind whenever she approached the Sanctuary, which seemed so much smaller to her than it had back then, so much more ordinary. An old brick schoolhouse with the name F. D. Roosevelt Elementary etched in stone over the door. From the path she could see the figure of a single Watcher standing on the top of the front steps: Hollis Wilson.
“Howdy, Sara.”
“Evening, Hollis.”
Hollis was balancing a crossbow on his hip. Sara didn’t like them; they had a lot of power but were too slow to reload, and heavy to carry besides. Everyone said how it was just about impossible to tell Hollis apart from his brother until he’d shaved his beard, but Sara didn’t see why; even as Littles—the Wilson brothers had come up three years ahead of her—she had always known which was which. It was the little things that told her, details that a person might not notice at first glance, like the fact that Hollis was just a little taller, a little more serious in the eyes. But they were obvious to her.
As she ascended the steps, Hollis tipped his head at the pot she was carrying, his lips turned up in a grin. “Whatcha bring me?”
“Jack stew. But it’s not for you, I’m afraid.”
His face was amazed. “I’ll be damned. Where’d you get him?”
“Upper Field.”
He gave a little whistle, shaking his head. Sara could read the hunger in his face. “I can’t tell you how much I miss jack stew. Can I smell it?”
She drew the cloth aside and opened the lid. Hollis bent to the pot and inhaled deeply through his nose.
“I couldn’t maybe talk you into leaving it here with me while you go inside?”
“Forget it, Hollis. I’m taking it to Elton.”
A jaunty shrug; the offer wasn’t serious. “Well, I tried,” said Hollis. “Okay, let’s have your blade.”
She withdrew her knife and passed it to him. Only Watchers were allowed to carry weapons into the Sanctuary, and even they were supposed to keep them out of sight of the children.
“Don’t know if you heard,” Hollis said, tucking it into his belt. “We’ve got a new resident.”
“I was out with the herd all day. Who is it?”
“Maus Patal. No big shock there, I guess.” Hollis gestured with his cross toward the path. “Galen just left. I’m surprised you didn’t see him.”
She’d been too lost in thought. Gale could have walked right past her and she wouldn’t have noticed. And Maus, pregnant. Why was she surprised?
“Well.” She managed a smile, wondering what
she was feeling. Was it envy? “That’s great news.”
“Do me a favor and tell her that. You should have heard the two of them arguing. Probably woke up half the Littles.”
“She’s not happy about it?”
“It was more Galen, I think. I don’t know. You’re a girl, Sara. You tell me.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Hollis.”
He laughed wryly. She liked Hollis, his easy manner. “Just passing the time,” he said, and motioned with his head toward the door. “If Dora’s awake, tell her hi from her uncle Hollis.”
“How’s Leigh doing? With Arlo gone.”
“Leigh’s been down this road. I told her, lots of reasons they might not be back today.”
Inside, Sara left the stew in the empty office and went to the Big Room, where all the Littles slept. At one time it had been the school’s gymnasium. Most of the beds were empty; it had been years since the Sanctuary had operated at anything close to capacity. The shades were drawn over the room’s tall windows; the only illumination came from narrow slices of light that fell over the sleeping forms of the children. The room smelled like milk, and sweat, and sun-warmed hair: the smell of children, after a day. Sara crept between the rows of cots and cribs. Kat Curtis and Bart Fisher and Abe Phillips, Fanny Chou and her sisters Wanda and Susan, Timothy Molyneau and Beau Greenberg, whom everyone called “Bowow,” a mangling of his own name that had stuck to him like glue; the three J’s, Juliet Strauss and June Levine and Jane Ramirez, Rey’s youngest.
Sara came to a crib at the end of the last row: Dora Wilson, Leigh and Arlo’s girl. Leigh was sitting in a nursing chair beside her. New mothers were allowed to stay in the Sanctuary up to a year. Leigh was still a little heavy from her pregnancy; in the pale light of the room, her wide face seemed almost transparent, the skin pallid from so many months indoors. In her lap was a fat skein of yarn and a pair of needles. She lifted her eyes from her knitting at Sara’s approach.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
Sara acknowledged her with a silent nod and bent over the crib. Dora, wearing only a diaper, was sleeping on her back, her lips parted in a delicate O shape; she was snoring faintly through her nose. The soft, damp wind of her breathing brushed Sara’s cheekbones like a kiss. Looking at a sleeping baby, you could almost forget what the world was, she thought.
The Passage Page 42