Crossed m-2

by Ally Condie

  “For one night, can we just think of each other? Not the Society or the Rising or even our families?”

  “No,” I say.

  “No what?” He tangles one of his hands in my hair, the other draws me closer still.

  “No, I don’t think we can,” I say. “And no, it isn’t too much to ask.”

  CHAPTER 27

  KY

  I never named anything I’ve written before

  no reason to

  since

  it would all have the same title anyway

  — for you—

  but I would call this one

  one night

  that night

  when we let the world be only you

  and only me

  we stood on it while it spun

  green and blue and red

  the music ended

  but we

  were still

  singing

  CHAPTER 28

  CASSIA

  When the sun comes into the Carving, we are already on the move again. The path is so narrow that we usually have to walk single file, but Ky stays near me, his hand on the small of my back, our fingers brushing and clinging every chance we get.

  We have never had such a thing before — a whole night to talk, to kiss and hold on — and the thought and we never will again keeps coming back to me, will not stay buried where it should, even in the beautiful light of the Carving morning.

  When the others woke, Ky told us what he thought our plan should be: get back to the township by evenfall and try to slip into one of the houses farthest from where he saw the light. Then we’ll keep watch. If there’s still only one light, we can try to approach in the morning. There are four of us and, Ky thinks, only one or two of them.

  Of course, Eli is so young.

  I glance back at him. He doesn’t notice. He walks on with his head down. Though I’ve seen him smile, I know the loss of Vick weighs heavily on both of them. “Eli wanted me to say the Tennyson poem over Vick,” Ky told me. “I couldn’t do it.”

  In the lead, Indie shifts her pack and looks back at us to make sure we still follow. I wonder what would have happened to her if I had died. Would she have cried for me, or would she have gone through my things, taken what she needed, and moved on?

  We steal into the township at dusk, Ky in the lead.

  I didn’t look closely when we came through before, and now the homes intrigue me as we move quickly down the street. People must have built their own, each house different in some way from the one next to it. And they could walk into each other’s residences, cross each other’s thresholds whenever they wanted. The dirt paths speak of this; unlike the ones in the Borough, the paths here do not go straight from front door to sidewalk. They wind, they web, they interconnect. The people have not been gone long enough for their comings and goings to have been completely erased. I see them there in the dirt. I almost hear their echo in the canyon, the callings-out: hello, good-bye. How are you?

  The four of us crowd inside a tiny weathered house with a watermarked door. “I don’t think anyone saw us,” Ky says.

  I barely hear him. I’m staring at the pictures painted on the walls. The figures were painted with a different hand than the ones in the cave, but again they are beautiful. They have no wings on their backs. They do not look surprised at flight. Their eyes are not turned up to the sky, but instead look down toward the ground, as though they will keep that sight of earth as a memory for higher days.

  But still I think I recognize them.

  “Angels,” I say.

  “Yes,” Ky says. “Some of the farmers still believed in them. In my father’s time, anyway.”

  The dark falls a little deeper and the angels turn into shadows behind us. Then Ky sees it, in the small house across the way. He points out the light to us. “It’s in the same house as the night before.”

  “I wonder what’s happening inside,” Eli says. “Who do you think is in there? A thief? Do you think they’re robbing the homes?”

  “No,” Ky says. He glances over at me in the shadowy night. “I think they are home.”

  Ky and I are both at the window at first light, watching, so we are the ones who see the man first.

  He comes out of the house, alone, carrying something, and walks through the dust, along the path closer to us, down to a little stand of trees that I noticed when we first came in. Ky motions to all of us to be quiet. Indie and Eli go to the other window in the front of the house and look out, too. We all watch carefully over the edge of the windowsills.

  The man stands tall and strong; he’s dark and tanned. He reminds me of Ky in some ways: his coloring, that quiet movement. But there’s a tiredness in him and he seems unaware of anything except what he carries, and in that moment I realize it’s a child.

  Her dark hair streams over his arms and her dress is white. An Official color, but of course she’s no Official. The dress is lovely, as though she’s going to a Banquet, but she’s much too young.

  And much too still.

  I put my hand to my mouth.

  Ky glances over at me and nods. His eyes are sad and weary and kind.

  She’s dead.

  I glance over at Eli. Is he all right? Then I remember that he’s seen much more death than this. Maybe he’s even seen a child dead before.

  But I never have. Tears fill my eyes. Someone so young, so tiny. How?

  The man puts her gently on the ground, in the dead grass under the trees. Something, a sound carried on the canyon wind, reaches our ears. Singing.

  It takes a long time to bury someone.

  While the man digs the hole, slowly and steadily, it begins to rain again. It’s not a heavy rain, but a sustained spatter of water against dirt and mud, and I wonder why he brought her out with him. Maybe he wanted her to have rain on her face, one last time.

  Maybe he just didn’t want to be alone.

  I can’t stand it anymore. “We have to go help him,” I whisper to Ky, but Ky shakes his head.

  “No,” he says. “Not yet.”

  The man climbs back out of the hole and walks over to the girl. But he doesn’t put her in the grave; he brings her near it and puts her body down.

  And then I notice the blue lines all over his arms.

  He reaches down and lifts up the girl’s arm.

  He pulls out something. Blue. He marks it on her skin. The rain keeps washing it off and yet he keeps drawing, over and over and over. I can’t tell if he still sings. Finally the rain stops and the blue stays.

  Eli’s not watching anymore. He sits with his back to the wall underneath his window and I crawl over across the floor to sit next to him, not wanting my movement to catch the eye of the man outside. I put my arm around Eli and he slides closer.

  Indie and Ky keep watching.

  So young, I keep thinking. I hear a thump, thump sound and for a moment I can’t tell if it is the beating of my heart or the sound of the dirt as it falls on the little girl in her grave.

  “I’m going now,” Ky whispers finally. “The rest of you, wait here.”

  I turn and look at him, surprised. I raise my head so I can see out the window again. The man has finished burying. He lifts a flat gray stone and puts it over the spot now filled in with dirt. I don’t hear singing. “No,” I whisper.

  Ky looks at me, raises his eyebrows.

  “You can’t,” I say. “Let’s wait until tomorrow. Look at what he’s had to do.”

  Ky’s voice is gentle but firm. “We gave him all the time we could. We have to find out more now.”

  “And he’s alone,” Indie says. “Vulnerable.”

  I look at Ky, shocked, but he doesn’t discount what Indie says. “It’s the right time,” he says.

  Before I can say more, he opens the door and leaves.

  CHAPTER 29

  KY

  “ Do what you want,” the man calls out when I reach the edge of the graveyard. “It doesn’t matter. I am the last.”
<
br />   If I hadn’t already known he was a farmer, his accent and the formality of his speech would have given him away. My father sometimes had a hint of their inflection in his voice when he came back from the canyons.

  I told the others to stay behind but of course Indie didn’t listen. I hear her coming up behind me and hope that Cassia and Eli had the sense to stay in the house.

  “Who are you?” the man asks.

  Indie answers behind me. I don’t turn around. “Aberrations,” she says. “People the Society wants dead.”

  “We came into the canyons to find the farmers because we thought you might help us,” I say.

  “We’re done with that,” the man says. “Finished.”

  Footsteps. Behind us. I want to turn around and call to Cassia and Eli to return to the house but I can’t turn my back on the man.

  “So there are four of you,” he says. “Any more?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’m Eli,” Eli says behind me.

  For a minute, the man doesn’t answer. Then he says, “My name is Hunter.” He looks at us closely. I do the same. He’s not much older than we are, I realize, but wind and weather have marked his face.

  “Did any of you live in the Society?” he asks.

  “We all did,” I say. “At one time or another.”

  “Good,” Hunter says. “I might need something from you.”

  “In exchange for what?” I ask.

  “If you can help me,” Hunter says, “you can have access to whatever you want. We have food. Papers.” He waves his hand wearily in the direction of the storage caves. Then he looks at me. “Though it appears you might have already helped yourselves.”

  “We thought this place was empty,” Eli says. “We’ll give it all back.”

  Hunter makes an impatient gesture. “It doesn’t matter. What is it you want? Things for trade?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Cassia and Indie exchange glances. Hunter notices it too. “What else?” he asks.

  Indie speaks up. “We’d like to know more about the Rising,” she says. “If it’s somewhere near here, how we can find it.”

  “And who the Pilot might be,” Cassia says eagerly. Of course she wants to know about the rebellion, since it seems to be mentioned in a poem from her grandfather. I wish I’d told her everything back on the Hill. She might have understood then. But now, after she’s begun to hope — I don’t know what to do.

  “I might have some answers for you,” Hunter says. “You help me and then I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “Let’s get started,” Indie says. “What do you want us to do?”

  “It’s not that easy,” Hunter says. “We have to go somewhere, and it’s getting too dark. Come back here tomorrow when it’s light.” He reaches for the shovel he used for the grave and I motion for the others to step back.

  “How do we know we can trust you?” I ask.

  He laughs again, that same humorless laugh. A faint echo of it bounces back from the walls of the canyon and among the empty houses. “Tell me,” Hunter says. “In the Society, do people really live to be eighty?”

  “Yes,” Cassia says. “But that’s only for Citizens.”

  “Eighty,” Hunter says. “We almost never reach eighty in the Carving. Do you think it’s worth it?” he asks us. “To have no choice, but to live so long?”

  “Some people think it is,” Cassia says quietly.

  Hunter passes his blue-marked hand across his face and what he said earlier is suddenly true. He’s done. Finished. “Tomorrow,” he says. He turns around and walks away.

  Everyone sleeps in the little house. Eli, Cassia, Indie. I stay awake and listen. Their breathing makes it sound as though the house itself breathes in and out but of course the walls hold still. I know Hunter won’t harm us but I can’t rest. I have to keep watch.

  Sometime near the approach of dawn, when I’m standing in the doorway looking out, I hear a sound from the other side of the room. Someone’s awake.

  Indie. She comes toward me.

  “What do you want?” I ask, trying to keep my tone even. I recognized Indie the moment I saw her. She is like me — a survivor. I don’t trust her.

  “Nothing,” Indie says. In the silence I hear her shift the pack. She never lets it out of sight.

  “What are you hiding in there?” I ask.

  “There’s nothing to hide,” she says, an edge to her voice. “Everything in here belongs to me.” She pauses. “Why don’t you want to join the Rising?”

  I don’t answer. We stand in silence for a little while. Indie pulls her pack over her shoulder and holds it tightly against her chest. She seems far away. I am too. Part of me is back with Cassia under the stars in the Carving. On the Hill with the wind. Back in the Borough when I was young, I never would have believed any of this could happen. I never dreamed I could steal so much from the Society.

  I hear someone stirring. Cassia.

  “She dreams about Xander,” Indie whispers behind me. “I’ve heard her call his name.”

  I tell myself that the scraps Xander hid in the tablets don’t matter. Cassia knew Xander and she still chose me. And the scraps won’t last. The port paper deteriorates so quickly. They’ll turn to flakes as delicate as snow. As spent and silent as ash.

  I can’t lose her now.

  Lived in the Outer Provinces for much of his life.

  Peers listed Ky Markham’s name as the student they most admired 0.00 % of the time.

  No one was ever going to get a list about me.

  And no one who loves someone else would want that person to have a Match like me.

  Does loving someone mean you want them to be safe? Or that you want them to be able to choose?

  “What do you want?” I ask Indie.

  “I want to know Xander’s secret,” Indie says.

  “What do you mean?”

  In answer she holds out a scrap of paper. “Cassia dropped this,” Indie says. “I didn’t give it back.”

  I know I shouldn’t take the scrap but I do. Careful to keep the light away from Cassia and Eli, I switch on my flashlight to read the paper:

  Has a secret to tell his Match when he sees her again.

  A line like that would never be included on Xander’s official microcard. He added something new. “How did he do it?” I ask in spite of myself, as though Indie would know. The Society carefully monitors all typing and printing. Did he risk using a port at school? At home?

  “He must be very smart,” Indie says.

  “He is,” I say.

  “So what’s the secret?” Indie asks, leaning closer.

  I shake my head. “What makes you think I’d know?” I do know and I’m not telling.

  “You and Xander were friends,” Indie says. “Cassia told me so. And I think you know a lot more than you say.”

  “About what?” I ask.

  “Everything,” she says.

  “I think the same about you,” I say. “You’re hiding something.”

  I shine the flashlight full on her and she blinks. In the light she looks almost blindingly beautiful. Her hair is a color that isn’t seen very often, a fire color of red and gold. And she’s tall and fine-featured and strong. Wild. She wants to survive, but there’s an element of unpredictability about how she’ll do it that keeps me on edge. “I want to know the secret,” she says. “And how to find the Rising. I think you know the answers. You won’t tell Cassia, and I think I know why.”

  I shake my head but don’t speak. I let the silence hang between us. She can fill it if she chooses.

  For an instant I think she will. Then she turns away and walks back to the spot where she slept. She doesn’t look at me again.

  After a moment I walk back to the door and steal outside. I open my hand to the wind and let the scrap blow away into the last of the night.

  CHAPTER 30

  CASSIA

  On the wall across from the angels, t
here is a very different painting. I did not notice it before, so intent was I on the picture of the angels. The others all sleep; even Ky has slumped over near the door where he insisted on keeping watch.

  I climb out of the bed and try to decide what the painting represents. It has curves, angles, and shapes, but I don’t know what it could be. None of the Hundred look like this. They are all clearly people, places, things. After a few moments, I hear Ky move at the other end of the room. Our eyes meet across the gray expanse of floor and the huddled dark shapes of Indie and Eli. Silently, Ky rises to his feet and comes to stand next to me. “Did you sleep enough?” I whisper.

  “No,” he says, leaning in and closing his eyes.

  When he opens them again neither of us have words or breath left.

  We both look at the painting. After a few moments, I ask, “Is it a canyon?” but even as I name the picture, I realize it could be something else. Someone’s flesh cut open, a sunset striping above a river.

  “Love,” he says, finally.

  “Love?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Love,” I repeat softly, still puzzled.

  “I think ‘love’ when I look at it,” Ky says, trying to explain. “You might think something else. It’s like the Pilot in your poem — everyone thinks something different when they hear that name.”

  “What do you think of when you hear my name?” I ask him.

  “Many things,” Ky whispers, sending rivers of chills along the length of my skin. “This. The Hill. The Carving. Places we’ve been together.” He pulls back and I feel him looking at me and I hold my breath because I know there is so much he sees. “Places we haven’t been together,” he says, “yet.” His voice sounds fierce as he speaks of the future.

  We both want to move, to be outside. Indie and Eli still sleep and we don’t disturb them; they’ll be able to see us from the window when they awake.