Whispers in Autumn (The Last Year, #1)

by Trisha Leigh

  I wait because I want his thoughts untainted by my own suspicions. He’s silent for so long I turn my head to see if he’s fallen asleep. I have no idea how that would be possible given the excitement zapping between us. Maybe it’s only affecting me.

  He’s not sleeping, but looks thoughtful. “It must be terrible to be like them. They’re trapped in their own heads and they don’t even know the Others have control.”

  To hear him say it aloud breaks down my last barriers of denial. “Yes. After what I saw that night, how they changed everyone’s memories…something happened in our kitchen and their control stopped working on her.”

  “She shed her veil.”

  The words the Others used morph into a usable phrase. “They do something to the humans so they’re always happy. So they don’t care when their children Break or that they watch the same movies every single week.”

  Huh. When did I start referring to the humans as separate from us?

  I whisper my worst fears through chattering teeth. “It doesn’t work on us, Lucas. What if we’re Other?”

  Confusion sets in as Lucas laughs from his belly. The deep, warm sound wiggles its way inside me and forces a smile onto my face.

  “Let’s not go crazy, Althea. One thing at a time. If we are Other, I guess we’ll find out in due time. There might be some perks.”

  “Like telling the Monitors not to give us homework.”

  “Going traveling when we feel like it.”

  “Reading each other’s minds.”

  We laugh together now, rolling around on the blanket like a couple of children. It feels so good. Our laughter dissolves into hiccups and we lie still, gasping for breath.

  “If we were Other, why would Ko bother to say we’re Dissidents? We’ve trusted him and those notes our whole lives. I don’t think we should stop now.”

  Sobered, I consider the facts. Ko says we’re not Other where it counts, inside. He says we’re Something Else. Not Other. Not human. Dissident. Reassurance pats my back like a parent’s hand. “Okay. We trust Ko. But we have to do something besides just sit around waiting for the interviews with the Others, or for one of us to travel away.”

  There is no rhyme or reason to our travels—when it happens or where we go. I might go to winter next, but I might not. It might happen this afternoon, or at the last possible second of autumn. Often I repeat the same season over and over. Most often I spend the entire season in one place and go in order—skipping summer, of course—but not always.

  That train of thought is useless. Worrying won’t change anything, but I issue a quick, silent request that we stay together. Lucas and I can discuss it when our moods aren’t so carefree.

  He inches closer to me, his face suddenly serious. “We’re going to figure out exactly what it is we can do. And we’re going to do it together.” Lucas’s eyes flutter to my mouth and linger. His voice drops to a rough whisper. “Can you read my mind right now?”

  I can’t find enough air to answer, but the desire lighting his eyes tightens a similar want in my belly. The realization that he wants to kiss me pushes a wave of heat and nerves through my body. Only Partners are allowed to kiss, and kissing in public is not Acceptable.

  But I don’t want to stop him.

  I swallow a couple of times and lick my lips, feel sweat bead up between our palms. My eyes close, as though they knew what to do all along. A sound like water roars in my ears and my heart throbs.

  At the last moment an unwelcome voice pierces the air, bringing the moment to a crashing halt. “Whoa. Um. Sorry, guys. Leah and I had to reschedule the Sanction and decided to take a walk. We didn’t…”

  My eyes fly open and I spy Deshi and Leah standing a few feet away. It takes my brain a minute to catch up and for once Lucas has trouble getting back under control, too. In fact, I recover first. “It’s okay. We’re just getting ready to head back.”

  To the strange couple’s credit, they don’t call me out for lying. It’s obvious we weren’t talking or leaving, and depending on how long they lurked in the trees, they could know far more than makes me comfortable.

  Lucas manages not to glare, fixing his smile as he stands and stretches his long legs. Deshi strides past and the air moves around me. My muscles tense as my eyes catch Lucas’s wide-eyed gaze.

  Deshi smells different.

  Still earthy and wet—but spoiled. As though the dirt has gone bad or grown a fungus. The Hammonds, my spring family, are avid gardeners. We till the soil and plant vegetables and flowers. Sometimes the plants die from diseases. The most common one that kills the tomatoes is blight.

  That’s what Deshi smells like.

  Instead of the rain-on-a-freshly-planted-garden smell, he smells like death.

  I try to shake it off as the four of us walk toward the park entrance. We pause before we head in opposite directions, and Deshi gives a theatrical shiver. “Getting pretty cold, don’t you think?”

  The way he looks my direction when he asks the question sinks my stomach into my tennis shoes; it makes me feel like he can see through my skin and into my secrets. His threat from the other night doesn’t boost my confidence.

  Lucas scoots closer to me and answers, even though it’s clear Deshi meant the question for me. “A little, but we don’t mind. It’s nice.”

  Deshi never looks in Lucas’s direction, his penetrating gaze holding me hostage. “Nice for him. He doesn’t mind the cold.”

  “I don’t mind the cold either. It’s bracing.”

  A belligerent tone taints my voice; more like a petulant child than a girl who almost got kissed a moment ago. Deshi holds up his hands and drops the subject. The way he looks at us, back and forth, says he let it go for now, but not for good.

  CHAPTER 19.

  “I have an idea, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.” Lucas glances sideways at me, refusing to break pace. It’s almost time to be back in the houses.

  “Well, try me. We have things to discuss, and a twenty-minute chat through paper cups isn’t getting it done.”

  “Okay, well the only thing we know we can control is the cold and the heat. I think we should practice. We could use it, maybe.”

  “What are you, totally banana balls?” The thought strikes me as dangerous above everything else. “I could hurt you. And we could attract too much attention.”

  “The Wardens are going to interview us soon—do you really think they’re going to miss the way we smell? Or what if they look inside your head and you don’t fool them this time? We either try to find a way to fight them or we might as well give up now.”

  Sadness over the loss of Mrs. Morgan mingles with lingering anxiety over Greg’s death. The memory of the barely restrained glee on the Others’ faces at the prospect of disposing of a human trembles in my mind. They’ve taken a dozen of our Cellmates this autumn and they’ll do the same to Lucas and me if they catch us.

  The surging determination to not only live myself, but to keep Lucas alive too, surprises me with its ferocity.

  We reach the Morgans’ front door and stand awkwardly on the porch. It gives me flashbacks to the night of the mixer, when we were both desperate to believe the other could be a Dissident too. What Lucas says makes sense—being captured and Broken certainly isn’t on my to-do list either, and the prospect of rebelling against what is Acceptable brings a thrill akin to the one offered by being outside the boundary.

  “Fine. But we figure out a way to do it safely. I’d hate to set you on fire.”

  Lucas offers a self-satisfied grin, then pulls me into a hug. His arms are cold around me at first, but the heat from my body balances us out. Instead of pulling away quickly, like usual, he holds me until I relax against him, resting my head against his chest. When he lets go, a sense of loss shifts over me like a heavy blanket. I want to know what it’s like to kiss him, to feel something other than our hands touch. The play of hot against cold, heat and chill passing between us. To know him even better.

&nbs
p; Years of using distance as protection ensure I don’t have a clue how to know anyone.

  He turns to go, but I remember my idea and it pops out of my mouth. “Oh. Speaking of crazy ideas, what if we could somehow figure out what the Wardens are asking in the interviews? That way we could prepare for our own and it might tell us exactly what brought them here to begin with.”

  “How? No one remembers what happens during them.” The previous hopeful tone in Lucas’s voice turns dubious, but I don’t see how his idea of igniting and freezing things is any more helpful.

  “I don’t know. If we could figure out where they’re holding the interviews, we could eavesdrop, maybe? It’s just an idea.”

  Lucas nods, a thoughtful look on his pale face. “We’ll think about it, okay? It’s a good idea, and if we could prepare that could make all the difference. I might have a way to find out where they’re conducting the interrogations, at least.”

  He jogs home and I enter the house right on time, wondering what he meant. Mr. Morgan greets me with a quivery smile and tells me dinner will arrive within the hour. Pork chops and macaroni.

  “I’ll be back down for dinner. Going to do homework.”

  Mr. Morgan nods as I race up the stairs, change into gray lounge pants, thick socks, and a hooded sweatshirt, then sprawl out on my bed. My backpack bounces on the mattress alongside me, but it isn’t the homework inside I’m after.

  I dig around for Lucas’s note holder.

  Drawing out the small plastic square, I stare at it for a few seconds, blowing away red strands that escape from my ponytail and settle at the corners of my lips.

  It’s not like anything I’ve never seen. The front has a picture of four men and the word Byrds, misspelled. It takes a minute to figure out how to pry it open, but when I do I find a flat, silver circle on one side. Tiny lines run around its circumference in never ending loops, any information it might hold indiscernible. Lucas’s note is inscribed on the booklet on the opposite side of the case. Ko’s words are identical to mine, except for his name.

  The booklet is held in by little plastic nubs but comes loose without a problem. Flipping it over, my fingers trace the faces of the men on the front. Odd groupings of words—not whole sentences but pieces of thoughts and emotions—run down the interior pages. I skim them all, then go back and read again, slower. By the time Mr. Morgan calls me to dinner, a funny trance has befallen me.

  Back in my room with no recollection of eating, conversation, or coming back upstairs, I climb into the soft bed and read the words again. Many of the paragraphs are about love—real love—not just required Partnering. Some Partners do love each other, like I think the Morgans did, but humans rarely Partner because of love. More often the Others pair us up. What our Cellmates believe about Lucas and me, that we are going to Partner voluntarily, is uncommon.

  Two sections in the booklet stick out to me, focusing on different subjects. The way the words meld into one another gives them meaning they could never have on their own. One in particular pricks my mind, settles in deep and refuses to leave.

  To everything there is a season

  And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

  More words follow. A time to be born, a time to die. A time to gain, a time to lose. A time to laugh, a time to weep. But those first six repeat over and over throughout the page, as though they’re the most important. To everything there is a season. Those words pester me, nag me, as though they have their own secrets to tell. Plenty of the words in the booklet are new to me, their definitions unknowable.

  Heaven. Weep. Dance. Mourn. War.

  Strange, but somehow they sound familiar when said aloud.

  To everything there is a season. What is it about that line?

  The overall tone haunts me, but not because I feel like I’m missing something. It’s the push and pull of it.

  A time to gain, a time to lose.

  I gained so much these past few days. The thought of losing it is too much to bear. Lucas and I have only scratched the surface of what might be possible. Many things seem feasible now that I’m not alone.

  A time to be born, a time to die. Like Mrs. Morgan. Like the baby next door, though no one knows for sure what happens to the Broken. I’ve never allowed myself to think about it, but after my close encounter with the Others I’m more confused than ever. They said they filed Mrs. Morgan under the list of Broken, not that she had Broken. Could it be that not everyone who Breaks is disposed of?

  To everything there is a season.

  The little thought that’s been zipping outside my reach flies into my grasp. The implications speed my heart into a gallop, but without Lucas to bounce them off of, it’s not easy to tell if I’m imagining the perfect way the words mirror my life, our lives.

  ***

  To my surprise, I sleep sound and long, opening my eyes mere moments before Mr. Morgan hollers up the stairs for me to get a move on. The past days have reinvigorated the pent-up energy I’ve carried around all these years. At last it has somewhere to go. My life has been spent blending in, going unnoticed, figuring out how to act normal. Now, I might be able to not only make sense of my existence, but take control of it.

  At any rate, once roused, I make it out of the house in record time, waiting for Lucas on the sidewalk for a full five minutes before he ambles out.

  “Morning.” My grin won’t stop, and I hop from foot to foot until he arrives at my side.

  Lucas stops in front of me, his eyes softening as he tucks a thick piece of hair behind my ear. His fingers brush down my cheek, leaving an odd, icy-hot feeling in their wake. Then he grins. “So what are you dying to tell me?”

  “I read those words inside the shiny little book, you know? Most of them were pretty, but some stuck out at me. The ones about the seasons and how they turn. The line ‘to everything there is a season.’ It made me think about us.” My ideas bubble out as we walk to Cell. They could be way off base, but it doesn’t feel like it. I’ve gone over it in my head a hundred times since last night and it feels true.

  “You mean, because we both skip a season?”

  I nod, wishing he wouldn’t interrupt. “Yes. But there are two of us, and four seasons. And the note, the one from Ko, says there are more—not another, not one more. See what I’m saying?”

  Understanding dawns in his eyes, excited and wondrous. “You think there are two more like us. One who misses the autumn, and one who misses the spring?” His expression amends to thoughtful. “You know, you might be on to something there.”

  “And the scents clinging to us, they remind people of the seasons we skip, too, right? You said yourself jasmine reminds you of summer in Georgia. The Others said the same thing the night they tried to brainwash me. That I smell like summer. Maybe you’ve never spent winter in Iowa but you sure smell like the groves of pine trees on the edges of the park there.”

  Lucas is silent for a minute, considering all the evidence carefully, which I’m coming to know reflects his thoughtful nature. We are inexplicably linked to those seasons we never experience; even our strange abilities mirror them. It makes weird sense that there are two more like us, whatever we are, out there traveling, too. One who never sees the leaves fall off the trees or feels the air turn chilly. Another who never watches flowers bloom, or endures days on end of warm rain.

  The realization must hit Lucas at the same time it does me, for we both start talking, our eyes huge, matching discs. “Deshi—”

  We stop. Lucas gestures for me to go.

  “Deshi smells like spring. Or at least, he did when he first got here. He still does, just a rotten spring instead of a fresh one.”

  Lucas nods. “It makes sense, if it is time for us to meet, that all three of us would be thrown together. The fourth can’t come here, because it’s autumn.”

  An errant thought drags down my jubilant mood. Lucas’s mention that our autumn counterpart can’t come here brings back the knowledge of our ultimate separation. My heart aches
at the thought of being alone again. If I go to winter, or Lucas to summer, we can’t be together.

  “This is crazy.” My brain struggles to wrap around the reality of our lives. “Why do we travel? Why do we skip seasons we resemble? There has to be a reason.”

  “I’d love to be able to answer even one of those questions. Or, why aren’t we pleasant, happy robots like everyone else?”

  The suggestion makes me shudder. “As weird as my life is, I wouldn’t trade being able to feel for anything. Would you?”

  “No. Not now, anyway. A couple of weeks ago I might have considered it.” The way his eyes linger on my face makes my cheeks heat up, and he chuckles. “Are you always going to turn into a furnace like that?”

  “Hey, it’s not like your cold hands don’t make me jump!”

  Lucas grabs my hand, disproving my jab when I don’t jump at all but latch onto him for dear life. We stroll without speaking for several minutes until the Cell comes into view down the street. We reach the front doors, both sporting our usual smiles now, and go our separate ways. The day is uneventful, as things go. Leah spills her milk in my lap at lunch, but these episodes of hers have become common. Lucas catches me in the hall before our chemistry exam. His eyes glow as he shuts my locker for me and tugs my arm.

  “There are still seven minutes before block. What’s the hurry?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  Curiosity heightens my senses as we enter the empty chemistry room and he leads me to the supply cabinets. The tops are littered with empty beakers sitting two to a tray, identical in size, along with a heating device and a thermometer.

  “You want to show me beakers?”

  Lucas rolls his eyes. “Just watch.” He pushes the sleeves of his thin shirt up to his elbows and wraps his strong hands around the glass container. Within seconds it frosts over, emitting a series of small cracks and pops. He pulls his hands away, grinning like an idiot.