Fever

by Lauren DeStefano

Page 16

 

  Again I let nothing on my face reveal that she’s stumbled upon a truth. That’s how these things work. Fortune-tellers make guesses and then rely on the physical reaction.

  “What about the Emperor?” I say, drawing back my hand and hiding it under the table.

  “The Emperor is brave and in command,” she says. “Because you drew this card next to your own, I believe it represents someone close to you. Someone as a part of your being as you yourself are. ”

  Her eyes, on the other side of those filthy glasses, are knowing. “Is this person you’re searching for your twin, perhaps?”

  Easy guess. Empress, Emperor. A prickling sensation crawls up the notches in my spine anyway. “Yes,” I say. “My brother. ”

  I don’t even hear her immediate response because I am too busy figuring out how she’s been able to predict me so well. My eyes go to all the things lining her walls, each one traded for a fortune she’s told. She must have spun a thousand reasonable lies, all with her ability to read body language and faces. I thought I was a bit more clever than the rest, but she’s cracked my code somehow too, and I am almost tempted to believe her. Bits of glass and plastic and metal wink at me in the firelight.

  Annabelle snaps to get my attention. I look at her.

  “I am having a hard time reading your twin,” she says, exasperated, “because there is something about this person that you won’t admit even to yourself. ”

  “That’s not true,” I say. “I know everything about my brother. Except where he is now. ” Isn’t that the point of this reading?

  Annabelle eyes me skeptically. “The Emperor is a powerful card,” she says. “It indicates a person who likes being in command. ”

  That’s Rowan, all right. After our parents died, he took charge of everything. He found work for both of us, made sure I got out of bed each morning rather than wallowing in my grief. He has always been the strong one, the logical one. In the months following my kidnapping by the Gatherers, I’ve been clinging to the hope that he has maintained that strength.

  Even though I don’t believe these cards hold any truth, I take comfort in the Emperor. It tells me that he’s still fighting. He hasn’t lost hope.

  “Maybe the third card will tell us something,” she says.

  I draw the top card from the third pile and lay it faceup beside the Emperor.

  The World.

  “This card never comes up,” Annabelle says. “Except, I remember, back when I was a girl doing readings in my hometown. Before we knew about the virus. It has not come up since then. ”

  “What does it mean?” I ask.

  “It’s a good card,” she says. “It means everything will fall into place. Your world will come together. ”

  “That’s a good thing, then, right?” I say.

  She’s frowning at the card. “When I draw three cards,” she says, “it represents the three universal laws. Life, death, and rebirth. In fairy tales there are three wishes, three fairy godmothers. Every reading is different, but here the Empress symbolizes your life, and the World may symbolize your rebirth. ”

  “And the Emperor represents death?” I say. That seems like an easy guess. We’re all dying quickly enough.

  “Not necessarily,” Annabelle says. “Death doesn’t have to be literal. It could mean change. A death of your former life, or your former relationships. ”

  Like when the Gatherers shoved me into that van and took me away from everything I’d ever known.

  “Who’s changed?” I say. “Me, or the Emperor?”

  “Perhaps both,” Annabelle says. “But what I can tell you is this: Things will get worse before they get better. ”

  This is a saying that first generations seem to have. My mother used to say it, her voice cooing and soft as she stroked my forehead when I was sick. Things will get worse before they get better. A little more agony before the fever will break.

  Of course they can say that. They live into old age. The rest of us don’t have time to wait through the worse for the better.

  “So you can’t tell me where he is,” I say. It’s not a question.

  “He is not as you remember him,” Annabelle says. “That is all I can tell you. ”

  “But he’s alive?” I say.

  “I don’t see any indication that he isn’t. ”

  I hesitate, the next question staying on my tongue for a long time before I finally let it out. “Has he given up on me?”

  Annabelle looks sympathetic. She gathers the cards back into one pile, tucks them safely away. “I am sorry,” she says. “I don’t know. ”

  Chapter 11

  WHEN IT’S MY TURN to sleep again, I dream of fire. My parents’ Manhattan house in flames. The open doorway reveals layers and layers of orange and yellow outside. The window is boarded up. I’m screaming for my brother. Rowan! The sound is raw in my throat.

  I’m screaming for him inside my flames, crying out that I’m alive.

  He doesn’t hear me. The dream turns to blackness.

  Maddie is hovering over me, shaking my necklaces so that they rattle aggressively. I open my eyes. My breaths are fluttery and shallow.

  “You were having a bad dream,” Gabriel says. He’s kneeling beside me, offering up a stale piece of bread from Lilac’s bag. “You should probably eat something before we get going anyway. ”

  His eyes are tired, his skin stubbly and gray. I sit up, take a bite of the bread, and realize how hungry I am. I can’t bear to think of the wonderful breakfast that would have been waiting for me at the mansion. “Did you eat anything?” I ask.

  “A little, while you were asleep. Annabelle offered to boil some bathwater for us if I helped her carry it back from the stream. I was waiting for you to wake up first. ”

  “I’ll help,” I say. But when I start to get up, he stops me with a hand on my shoulder.

  “I can manage,” he says. “You should rest. You look like you need it. ”

  I could swear there’s malice in the way he says it. I search his face. Faded bruises are still lurking beneath his skin. The distance in his eyes, I think, cannot be blamed only on the angel’s blood still working its way out of his system.

  He’s upset with me. I can’t blame him; I’m the one who talked him into leaving the mansion with me, and therefore I am the cause of every hardship that’s happened since. The longer I stare at him, the more certain I become. My heart sinks.

  “We’ve gotten off to a lousy start, Gabriel,” I say. “I’m sorry. I promise it’ll be worth it. Look, at least we’re free—”

  “Forget it,” he interrupts, standing. “Just rest. I’ll be back. ”

  I hand the rest of the bread to Maddie, who gobbles it hungrily while I stand. “I’ll go too,” I insist.

  Annabelle is inspecting one of her walls when we step outside. She’s muttering about the wind always tearing the boards loose. She points us to the river and offers the stack of rusted, mismatched buckets she keeps for collecting and boiling bathwater.

  Gabriel and I walk in a silence so tight, I can hardly stand it. Both of us are breathing too hard, from exhaustion and nausea and the trials of the past several days. And I feel guilt on top of all that too. Guilt for what I’ve put him through. And guilt for not being entirely honest when I convinced him to run away with me.

  We sat on my bed and I told him stories about Manhattan, about freedom and fishing and tall buildings and my silly dreams of living a normal life. In my captivity the outside world became twice as bright in my memories, and wonderful, and so deliciously tempting that I wanted him to be a part of it. I wanted him to know what life was like beyond Vaughn’s mansion. I was so swept up in these things that I forgot about how cruel the world can be. How chaotic and dangerous.

  I open my mouth several times to say this to him, but eventually all that comes out is “How do you think Vaughn found me so quickly?”
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  “I don’t know. ” Gabriel’s voice is worried. “I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe we aren’t very far from the mansion yet. He might still know people in these parts. ”

  “It seems like a stretch,” I say. “I thought we’d gone pretty far. ”

  Gabriel shrugs. “We’ll have to go farther. ” And then we go back to not speaking.

  Hauling the water from the stream to Annabelle’s house takes a toll on me. My arms are throbbing; my throat and skin are raw from the cold. My legs feel as though they’re about to fall off. But at least I’m doing something useful.

  Annabelle boils the water for us over the fireplace, one bucket at a time, and dumps it into a washbasin.

  The warm water does wonders for me, even if I am sponge-bathing with a threadbare rag. It feels good to be rid of the layer of grime that accumulated on my skin.

  I trade my yellow dress, torn sash and all, for a lumpy green sweater and jeans.

  I think of the beautiful sweater Deirdre knit me; it’s gone forever now, a part of Madame’s demented circus.

  Annabelle hugs me at the door when I leave, tells me to be careful. She says it in a hushed tone, like it’s a big secret, the heaviness of the card reading in her eyes. I could swear she looks worried, even if she is rushing us out the door before her potential customers arrive. I see no promise of customers anywhere. We are standing in a ghost town, more dilapidated than Madame’s carnival, every building plucked of vital pieces to be used in makeshift houses like Annabelle’s.

  Gabriel, still looking haggard, says, “Thank you for the accommodations,” so formally, it’s like we’re still in the mansion. Then he takes Maddie’s hand, and I shoulder Lilac’s bag, and we’re off again.

  Gabriel doesn’t ask what our next stop will be. I think he’s given up on structure. And I have no answers. I know we can’t walk to Manhattan; I know we’ll have to work something out before dark. Annabelle told us there would be a town a few miles up, if we stayed along the coastline. So we go, just close enough that we can smell the ocean, hear the waves rising and collapsing into themselves.

  I think of what Vaughn said, about Linden wasting away and Cecily’s baby dying. I hesitate, and then I say, “Do you think what he said was true? About Linden and Cecily and Bowen?”

  “Doubt it,” Gabriel says, not looking at me. I can feel his anger bristling under his skin, buzzing with an energy that’s almost audible. The muscles in his face are tight, his lips chalky pale.

  In the mansion he was always warm and alive. In the cold autumn air he’d bring me hot chocolate and hide for a while in the leaves, always red at the cheeks and hands. Vivaciousness under his suppressed smiles. Now he is not that boy at all. I can’t recognize him.