Fever

by Lauren DeStefano

Page 30

 

  Ascending the stairs is a chore, even with Gabriel’s help. He sets me on the floor and leaves me so he can go find more blankets.

  “I saw a dead girl today,” I murmur when Gabriel comes back and starts arranging the quilts on the ground like a mattress.

  He pauses only to frown at me, like I’m not making any sense.

  “It’s true,” I say. “She was lying in a river in a ditch. She looked at me. ”

  “Come here,” Gabriel says. He’s holding up a blanket for me to climb beneath. I crawl into place, and he tucks me in.

  He’s running his fingers through my hair, and I lean my head against his thigh, sighing something about music as I start to drift off.

  But I never feel as though I am truly asleep. The night is nothing but darkness, arms and legs and elbows emerging in the glow of Silas’s clock. At one point I think they’re waves rising up to drown me, and my scream sets off an echo of hiccups and baby cries. Someone turns on the light, and it stays on until morning.

  In the early hours, the sky still a predawn blue, I awaken. My head is in Gabriel’s lap, cushioned by a pillow, his fingers still in my hair, twitching sometimes with the memory of his gentle strokes. He’s asleep, though, sitting up against the wall, mouth open, breaths rasped. I stare up at the curve of his chin, and I reach my hand out to touch it, but suddenly he’s miles away. I try to call for him, but I have no voice.

  I open my eyes again, and I must have been asleep, because now the sun is brighter and Silas is no longer in his bed.

  “Hi,” Gabriel whispers. His voice is a cool breeze through luxuriant trees. It’s so sweet that I close my eyes, let it rush through me.

  “Hi,” I say. My voice is a broken violin string. “Still think I was lying about the dead girl? Ask Silas. It’s true. ”

  “I believe you,” he says.

  “Maybe it was too cold for me to go out. ” I press my temple against his knee. “I caught a chill. ”

  “Being around so many kids can make you sick,” Gabriel says. “Germs. Someone was always sick in the orphanage. I remember that. ”

  I nod, and after a while I allow myself to be helped up. Claire brings me apple sauce and cranberry juice and aspirin. I force myself to down all of these things at her insistence, but a few minutes later, when it all comes back up, she gives me a look so worried that all the light drains from the room. I stare at her as the shadows engulf her dark face, leaving nothing but the whites of her eyes.

  I’m aware of Maddie and Nina frequenting my doorway, holding hands, thinking themselves unseen while I’m in this hazy state. Nina whispers something, and they skitter away like cockroaches.

  Gabriel only leaves me in the evening to help Claire with dinner, or maybe to shower—he told me, but I can’t remember. When I finally awaken, I feel as though I’m baking in the blankets. I kick them away, sweat making my clothes stick to my back.

  “I’m a mess,” I say when Gabriel comes back. “I need a shower. ”

  He helps me to my feet, and we start off down the hall, but Claire stops us. “You’re too tired to be on your feet,” she says.

  Silas is just coming out of one of the rooms, biting into a sugar cookie and watching me worriedly as he chews.

  “I just need a shower,” I say. “The water will clear my head. ”

  Claire gives in, but on a compromise. I’m to use the bathroom in the attic because it has a tub and I should be sitting down. I even let her draw the water for me; she sprinkles it with eucalyptus oil. “I’ll be just outside folding laundry if you need me,” she says. Every few minutes she calls my name to make sure I haven’t fallen asleep and drowned.

  The tub is probably as old as the house, a white claw-foot that is poetically chipped and yellowed. My toes play with the chain of the drain plug.

  The water feels so relaxing that I soak until it has gone cold. And then, teeth chattering, I towel myself off and slip into the pajamas Claire laid out for me.

  When she offers to move the spare mattress into Silas’s room so I can be more comfortable tonight, I try to refuse, but next thing I know, Silas is hauling the thing down the stairs.

  I follow him, taking slow, careful steps, my wet hair dripping alongside my footsteps.

  “Silas?”

  The mattress hits each step with a thud, a small explosion, jarring my vision. I cling to the railing.

  “What?”

  Because he has already asked me a question that was difficult to answer, about my wedding ring and Gabriel, I decide to ask him something that has been weighing on me since the day I arrived.

  “You blame yourself for what happened to Grace, don’t you?”

  Thud, thud—the mattress drags down the steps. “Yes,” he says. He sits at the bottom step, the mattress splayed on the floor at his feet, and I sit beside him. “I tried to blame you, for not bringing her back with you. But it’s my fault she was taken in the first place. ”

  He pauses, granting me the opportunity to tell him he’s wrong, but I say nothing, and he goes on. “We were fighting. We fought all the time. But that morning was different. Ominous. I still remember how blue the sky was. Is that strange? We were walking to school, and I looked up into all that sky and I felt like something had changed. ”

  “I don’t think that sounds strange,” I tell him.

  “She tripped on a tree root that had grown over the sidewalk. She dropped her books, and she was swearing as she picked them up. I laughed at her. She shoved me. The truth of it is, I wanted to kiss her, but I knew she wouldn’t let me. So I said something stupid instead, but I don’t even remember what it was. She ran ahead of me. ‘You’re an idiot, Silas!’ she said. That was it. She turned a corner, and I never saw her again. ”

  “She might have let you kiss her,” I offer.

  Silas laughs. “That’s your response?”

  I take a moment to think about it. “Yes. ”

  “Kiss or no kiss,” Silas goes on, “I never even saw the van. I never heard a scream. ”

  “You were only a kid yourself,” I say. “Believe me, you wouldn’t have been able to overpower the Gatherers even if you had. ”

  “Maybe not,” Silas says. “But I’ll never know, will I? And that’s what stings. ”

  “Do you love her?” I ask.

  “I don’t know who she is now,” he says. “Or what she’s gone through, or what she must have been thinking all these years. She had a daughter. ” He drops forward on his knees. “A daughter. Who doesn’t even speak. ”

  “Would you talk to her if she could?” I ask.

  “No,” he admits.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, causing him to start. I don’t know why; he should be used to girls pawing at him by now.

  “Maybe you can get her back,” I say.

  “I’ve been thinking that,” he says. “But she’s nineteen now. And Claire—it would be too much for her to lose her only daughter twice. The second time so permanently. And she needs me here besides. ”

  He shakes his head lightly, and his curls chime like bells in my mind.

  “It’s best to let her go,” he says.

  No, no, that’s wrong. It’s never right to give up on someone.

  But then I think of my brother, so consumed with loss that he set fire to our things and took off on a mission either to find me or to escape any memories of me.

  And here I’ve been, staggering through the days like a zombie, wondering how I’ll ever find him.

  It would be easier to let go. For me. For Rowan. For Silas and Claire.

  I don’t know. I’m so confused, and the bells in my head are so loud that all I can manage to say is “Maybe you’re right. ” Even though I know he’s wrong. I get up, clinging to the railing, and nudge the mattress with my foot. “Would you mind setting this thing up? I’m really tired. ”

  Silas drags the mattress into the be
droom for me, and I arrange the blankets and pillows for myself after he leaves to take care of some crisis involving maple syrup on the piano.

  The mattress is not big enough to comfortably hold two people, but when Gabriel lies down on the floor, I ask him to get under the blankets with me. “I promise I won’t throw up on you or anything,” I say.

  He fits himself behind me, and I close my eyes. He’s trying to hold still, but the subtle shifting of his body indicates he isn’t comfortable like this. I reposition myself, edging over to give him more room, though he never makes a word of complaint.

  I say, “When I’m feeling better, maybe in a day or two, I’m going to start looking for my brother. I don’t think I’m going to find him. There are a hundred trucks like the one he stole. But I’ll hate myself if I don’t try. ” Because what Silas said is true: the not knowing is what stings. I can’t live with that. It might be too late for Grace, but there is still time to find my brother. “You don’t have to come with me. I’d understand. I’ve already dragged you all this way, and it’s not fair to drag you any farther. ”

  Gabriel is quiet for a while, considering. He tilts his head, and his face brushes the back of my neck, and something like exhilaration fills my exhausted body. “You didn’t drag me out of the mansion,” he says. “I wanted to go. ”

  “Because Jenna asked you to protect me,” I say.

  “Is that what you think?” He leans over me so that I can see his face. My back is cold where his body was just pressed to it. “She asked me to, yes. But I had made up my mind before then. ”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “You fascinated me,” he says, settling back down, gathering my body to his. “You had so much faith in the world, and I wanted to see it the way you did. ”

  I laugh painfully. “Now that you’ve seen it, you must think I’m crazy. ”

  He doesn’t answer, but he tightens his arm around me, places a kiss on the back of my neck. It’s not long before I fall asleep.

  Chapter 20

  IN MY DELIRIUM one night I dream of our escape boat, feel it rocking me into a deeper sleep, to a place with long stretches of hot pavement. Frail lilies grow, weary and flushed, their soil heavy with the scent of blood. And everywhere are the girls, gaping, their black eyes full of clouds, the smiles of their slit throats crusted red. Their mouths don’t move, but I understand what they want to say. You could have been one of us. Don’t forget.

  My twin has gone, but he was here. His presence lingers, sweaty and fragrant, filling over with dust. He has searched these girls for me, so hardened to the sorrow that he can feel nothing for them, cannot even see that they are girls; he only sees that they don’t belong to him, are not his only sister. And he’s on to darker roads, to scarlet district brothels and idling gray vans, covering the continent as quickly as he can, for the years are moving rapidly beneath his feet. And as he searches for me, I search for him, and I feel him only after he’s gone and only when I’m dreaming. Does he feel me?