Guardians

by Susan Kim

  He had spoken without guile, Esther thought. Taking a chance, Esther decided to speak the truth as well. “I don’t know what Gideon told you. But what Silas is up to wasn’t my idea.”

  Trey didn’t answer, just shrugged. He seemed mesmerized by the candle stuck to its holder of hardened wax, watching the yellow flame bend and flicker. Yet it was clear from the expression on his face that there was something else on his mind. He looked serious, even grave.

  “Look,” he said, “I hear about the girl. The little one downstairs? She’s up to something bad. It ain’t safe for you anymore. Or your children.”

  At the mention of Saith, Esther looked up sharply. “Is she working with Gideon?”

  Trey nodded. “Once that boy gets something in his head . . .” He didn’t elaborate. “He got fierce feelings about you.”

  Esther sighed and looked away again. “He wanted to be my partner. But that doesn’t mean he’s got feelings.”

  Trey shook his head. “You broke his heart. If that possible with him.”

  “I guess everybody’s got a heart.” Esther turned back and looked the boy in the eyes.

  “It’s true.” He reached out a hand as if to touch her, then let it fall on the step. They sat like that in silence for several moments. “Look,” he said at last, “I got room for two. Four, with your kids.” He paused again. “Maybe Gideon hired me. But I’m on your side, Esther.”

  Esther drew a deep breath.

  Saith and Gideon were intending to come after her or Sarah—it was only a matter of when and how. Trey was offering her and her children not just a safe escape, but perhaps something more: a chance at a life together.

  It would be so easy, she thought with a real pang, to go away with him.

  And yet she hesitated.

  She thought about the people who even at that moment were sleeping a floor below them. There were only five of them, Outsiders whom Esther had brought to the District. She had fed and washed them by hand, was teaching two of them to read. In one case, she had saved a boy from certain death . . . and there would always be more, for the world was full of the sick and dying.

  None of her friends, Esther knew, shared her intense desire to help. If she were to leave tomorrow, no one would take over her work.

  Esther remembered the private pledge she had made to whatever higher power existed: She would try to help others as best she could. And now that Saith was threatening to destroy all that she had started, could she truly turn her back on it, just to save her own skin?

  “I thank you,” she said. “But . . .”

  “Don’t say no right off. You ought to think about what I said. Still, there ain’t much time.”

  “I can’t. I’m needed here.”

  There was a pause. Then he nodded. “Well,” he said, “I better be gone, then. Before I’m found.”

  Esther said nothing. She could feel him pulling away from her, concealing himself again behind his hard exterior as he got to his feet.

  Before he did, he turned back, surprising her. His sudden movement snuffed out the candle. In the dark, Trey pulled Esther to him. He kissed her, and his mouth was soft and warm; she had not been kissed like this since Aras left. Then he let his lips trail to her neck, where he buried his face, taking in the scent of her.

  Slowly, he let go.

  “Maybe I’ll see you again,” he said. “It can be a small world sometimes.”

  He took the stairs now, vanished into the black. As his white form drifted from view, Esther heard him say:

  “Take care of that little boy.”

  Then even his footsteps faded away.

  When she returned to her room, Esther was able to sleep, at least for a little while. Then she heard the door open as someone came in and sat on the edge of her bed.

  In the moonlight, she could make out Skar’s profile. “Michal told me about the doll,” her friend whispered.

  Esther let out her breath. Ever since the two girls had made up after their fight on the roof, they had been closer than ever.

  “Did you know?” Esther asked at last, as she sat up. “About Saith?”

  Skar was silent for a moment. “I knew something was wrong from the beginning. But I thought she was just a silly little girl. Now I realize that was a mistake.”

  “It was my mistake, too.” Esther bit her lip. In whispers, she told about Saith’s visit and the threat she had made against Sarah.

  Gideon, she was certain, was behind it all.

  “How can I stop it?”

  Even as she spoke the words out loud, Esther realized she was asking the question of herself. For it had finally become clear to her that ignoring what was going on downstairs and tending to her own business had been a mistake. Running away with Trey would not have helped; in fact, it would have made things even worse. Her willingness to turn a blind eye had allowed something terrible to grow and flourish, something that now threatened to end everything she had worked for.

  She only hoped it was not too late to act.

  Skar was deep in thought. “There is one thing you have that she doesn’t,” she said at last. “It may not seem like much, but it might turn out to be greater than all of this little one’s lies and badness.”

  “I know.” The sudden realization struck Esther. “I know what it is.” In the moonlight, she saw her friend turn to her with a questioning smile.

  “The truth,” Esther said simply.

  Joseph glanced over Uri’s shoulder, squinting to make sense of what the younger boy was reading. Then, as he had so many times, he gave up.

  The two now spent most mornings alone in the library, for as the days passed, fewer and fewer students came to the tenth floor. Joseph understood in a vague sort of way that it had something to do with what was going on on the lower levels. He was saddened by the change, for he found he enjoyed teaching. Still, the unexpected freedom gave both him and Uri endless time for their beloved books.

  Uri in particular had been keenly focused on his reading. For the past few weeks, he had been working his way through a stack of yellowed and crumbling magazines and journals, often referring to thick books, including a dictionary, that were piled up next to him. The titles of the articles were incomprehensible to Joseph: He couldn’t even pronounce most of the words, strange things like “immunology,” “resistance,” and “waterborne pathogens.” Yet Uri had been staying up late each night, even falling asleep over his books. Joseph brought him food and water several times a day and had to remind him to eat.

  Although Joseph was much older and had been reading far longer, it had been clear from the start that Uri had the better mind of the two. While Joseph loved to read, it was purely for pleasure; he had little understanding of topics like math or science. The more time he spent with Uri, the more this had started to make him feel self-conscious; his maps and clocks and childish stories were no substitute, he sensed, for what Uri read. It was the kind of knowledge that really mattered.

  Still, Uri seemed oblivious to any difference between them and was always happy to share what he learned. And knowing that he had been the one to teach him brought Joseph a genuine sense of pride. Joseph was the oldest of them all, thanks to the spring of uncontaminated water beneath his home in Prin; yet this was the first time the older boy had ever understood what being a parent must have felt like. He had been a mentor to Esther, but this was new. Uri was not merely following in his footsteps but surpassing him.

  Now if only he could understand what the boy was talking about!

  Uri was reading as he usually did, his head propped up on both fists as he gazed down on a thick book with tiny black print. Scattered across the table in front of him were various articles that he had carefully clipped from magazines. He didn’t even seem to notice when Stumpy lay down on the pile, scattering some with her tail. Stroking her in an absentminded way, the young boy finally looked up.

  “You ever hear of smallpox?”

  Abashed, Joseph shook his head. Lately, many if
not most conversations with the boy began this way: with a word or question that left him completely baffled.

  “It was a disease that killed lots of people. But there was another disease like it, only not as bad. You got sick . . . but then you got better again. They called it cowpox.”

  Joseph perked up. He knew that cows were a kind of deer, and he always enjoyed hearing stories about animals. “Really? What was the cow’s name?”

  Uri blinked at Joseph as if perplexed by the question. “I don’t know.” Then he continued. “Anyway . . . if you got cowpox, you didn’t get smallpox. That’s called immunity.”

  Joseph was doing his best to follow, but was starting to become confused. “Cowpox,” “smallpox”—the strange words felt like they were getting tangled in his ears. He stared at the floor and concentrated as Uri continued. “But not all diseases work that way. The killing disease . . . the one that comes from water? It’s different.”

  Although he didn’t understand, Joseph felt he had to say something. “It’s not like smallpox?”

  Uri shook his head, staring off into space. “No . . . it doesn’t have a related disease. See, there was so little time . . . the sickness hit so fast and everybody died so quick. But some people started doing experiments on immunity, since nothing else seemed to work.” He tapped the faded journal that lay in front of him. “One of them thought immunity was simple. That maybe it came from contact with open lesions.” He looked up at Joseph and gave a rare smile. “Repeated contact.”

  Joseph nodded. He was glad that Uri was excited by the information, but he wasn’t sure why. Even his cat looked confused. Stumpy was curled next to the book, one paw draped on the exposed page, her yellow eyes half-shut.

  “I think we should tell Esther,” Uri said.

  “You do? Why?”

  “Because. She might want to know.” When he turned to Joseph, the older boy was surprised to see that Uri’s face seemed to glow. “It will be a gift. To say thank you for everything she’s done. For—”

  He was interrupted by a noise. Silas stood at the door, breathless.

  “Ain’t you heard?” he said. “Everybody got to go to the market. Now.”

  Even as Silas spoke, Joseph could hear faraway doors and the murmur of voices in the stairwell. “What for?” Joseph asked.

  Silas shrugged. “It’s Esther. She got something to say and she want folks to hear. Everyone.”

  Joseph wondered what it could be about. By the time he struggled to get Stumpy into her carrier and he and Uri entered the stairwell, he could hear others picking their way downstairs in the dark ahead of him. Joseph could make out the voices of Silas, Michal, and a few of his students. Others were unfamiliar to him, and he assumed they were sick people also making the effort.

  When Joseph emerged on the top floor of the mall with Uri trailing behind, he was regretting that he came. The main level of the District was teeming with even more crowds than usual; the sound was deafening. Across the floor, he saw Silas, Skar, and Michal with Kai, huddled together by the railing. Uneasy, he scurried over to join them, Uri following on his heels.

  Looking out over the mall made Joseph dizzy. There were far too many people to count, perhaps even more than two hundred, crowding the steps and the lower landings. Behind them all, he thought he could see Gideon, although he wasn’t sure.

  All of a sudden, the noise quieted.

  Joseph looked around. Then he saw that everyone was staring at Esther, who stood alone on the other side of the fourth floor on a wide central stairway. Even from where he stood, he could see that his old friend was nervous.

  “Excuse me.” It took the entire hall to grow silent for people to hear her. She cleared her throat and began again.

  “Some of you know me,” she began. “Some don’t, although I think you’ve heard talk about me. I’m Esther. And I live with my friends up on the top floor. We work the garden. I help people who are sick. And my friend Joseph and me—we teach people to read.”

  From where he stood, at the mention of his name, Joseph felt as if he was going to faint. Yet no one was paying him any attention. A faint murmur rippled through the hall. Esther waited until it subsided before she spoke again.

  “Anyone who wants to learn can come. It doesn’t cost anything. And there’s something else.”

  Esther rubbed her face with a sleeve, as if brushing away sweat. “Maybe some of you heard I had a baby, only it died. Well, that’s not true.” She bent over and, for a moment, disappeared from view. When she reemerged, she was holding something in her arms. “I want you to meet her. Her name’s Sarah.”

  The murmurings grew even louder as Esther lifted the bundle so that everyone could see. Then she undid the blanket, revealing the baby’s face.

  “In case you didn’t know, she’s a variant. She’s my little girl and I love her.”

  There was a collective gasp, followed by a moment of silence. Then all at once, people began talking. Esther had spoken in a clear and deliberate voice, yet it seemed that not everyone had heard her; now her words were being relayed person to person as swiftly as fire through a field of dead grass. Joseph could not perceive what was being said, but he sensed agitation, even hysteria, in the raised voices. With mounting panic, he saw people begin pushing and shoving to get closer.

  The noise became deafening as the crowd surged around Esther, and she vanished from Joseph’s sight.

  FOURTEEN

  CARRYING HER BABY, ESTHER PICKED HER WAY DOWN THE STAIRS TO THE main level. Within moments, she was mobbed by both acquaintances and strangers. The noise and jostling soon awoke Sarah; as she blinked open her lavender eyes, people exclaimed and murmured among themselves. When she yawned, revealing tiny pink and toothless gums, a ripple of harsh laughter spread through the group.

  There was a hostile and reckless feel to the crowd as they pushed and shoved to get closer. Esther recoiled from the jeering faces.

  Had she made a terrible mistake?

  Even though she was terrified, Esther knew that any show of fear or uncertainty would be a signal to the others to attack. And so she kept her head high and greeted those who approached her, answering all of their questions, no matter how hurtful or ignorant.

  Everyone continued to whisper and laugh, and more than a few made cruel jokes that were loud enough to be heard by everyone. Yet more and more, it seemed the crowd had begun responding to Esther’s straightforward and unashamed approach. If the prevailing emotion on people’s faces had at first been revulsion, it was soon curiosity. There were few enough infants around and so many seemed moved just by the sight of a baby. Some of the older females even wiped their eyes.

  Within half an hour, most had wandered away, eager to get back to the business of working, buying, and selling. Soon Esther and Sarah were alone and making their way to the far staircase, to go back to their home on the top floor with the rest of their friends.

  No one had seen Saith there except Gideon.

  The little girl stayed until the last of the curious were gone. Then, moving quickly, she slipped away. She was not, Gideon noticed, heading to her room in the back of the fourth floor. Nor was she joining the others who now thronged the market. Instead, she went straight to the twin staircases that led downstairs to the secret rooms.

  The little girl in white strode past the boys with the fearsome weapons guarding the entry without even acknowledging them. Bowing and touching their heads in respect, they let her pass. Then, gathering her robes, Saith pattered down the metal steps without a sound.

  Gideon followed.

  Saith did not head for either the drinking room or the small closet where Nur supervised the girls. Instead, she moved past them, into the dark and abandoned section of the food court, her white clothing gleaming in the murky air.

  Gideon saw her turn down a narrow hallway. She stopped halfway down and fumbled inside her robes; he could hear the sound of keys. Then she unlocked the door and pushed it open, disappearing inside the parking garage.


  Curious, the boy continued.

  Gideon stepped inside the cavernous space with distaste, for although this was where Joseph had discovered the glass, he had no sentimental feelings about the foul and rat-infested room. Still, he wanted to see what business Saith might have in here. He lifted his arm to block his nose from the dreadful smells that arose from the mountains of waste tied in black plastic bags; he could hear nothing but the scurrying and squeaking of vermin. Taking out a firestarter and clicking its tiny wheel, Gideon lifted it high so he could look around. And across the echoing space, he finally saw Saith.

  She stood with her back to him, apparently not having seen him enter. As he approached, Gideon was surprised to discover that she was shaking, her shoulders heaving. He was unused to such behavior, and it took him a moment to understand what was happening.

  Saith was crying.

  Just then, it seemed she finally noticed the flame’s glow, for she whirled around. The firestarter had grown hot in Gideon’s hand and he let it drop, plunging them both into darkness. Yet in the second that Saith was illuminated, the boy had been stunned by the look of rage that contorted her face, carving deep lines across her forehead and around her eyes.

  She looked ancient.

  “I sorry.” Gideon was startled enough to give an automatic apology. But it became apparent that Saith’s anger was not meant for him.

  “You see how she do?” Saith seemed barely able to control herself. In the dark, he heard her take in deep shuddering breaths and stammer as she struggled to form sentences. For the first time since he had met her, the little girl seemed at a loss for words. When she spoke, it was in whimpers, making her sound more like a wounded animal than a human. “How she bring that little mutant and show it off? And because she do, everybody think she good. Everybody love her more.” Saith choked with hatred, and a fresh sob erupted from her. “She know what I planning. But then she turn it around. Now she laughing at me. She laughing at me.”