Eve

by Anna Carey

Page 18

  “Yours is the doorway on the right, three away,” he said as the moss-covered slat came down behind me, sealing me in the narrow corridor once again.

  When I reached the cavern, I was thankful to see Arden’s familiar face glowing in the fading flashlight. Still, I shook, my hands trembling, my heart banging in my chest. He’d recited where my room was so quickly. Too quickly.

  I listened for echoes in the tunnel, my spine stiff against the cold wall, afraid those beady black eyes would come when I least expected it, to find me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  CALEB AND I RODE THROUGH THE WOODS, WINDING IN AND out of trees. After the sighting of the troops the previous night, the oldest boys had been on watch all day, making sure the soldiers had left the area. No one spoke to me, no one dared look at me. It wasn’t until they’d discovered fresh tire tracks on the road leading away from the lake that the lockdown had ended. Caleb had appeared in our doorway while I was tending to Arden and invited me to hunt with him. I didn’t mind that I had to wear boy’s clothing—ripped cotton shorts and a loose shirt—or tie my hair back in disguise. I was just thankful to be out in the fresh air, away from that dank cave. Away from the underground lair and that animal, Leif.

  When we reached a grassy clearing Caleb scanned the tree line, gazing down at the rocky shore. “Nothing there. ” He turned the horse around. “We’ll have to find a lookout point. ”

  The sky was a deep orange with billowing clouds, their bellies traced with red. We’d tracked a wild boar across a field and into a quarry, until it was startled by a falling rock. Now we were on the lookout for deer. I slid back on the horse, trying to enjoy the freedom of being aboveground. But last night’s encounter still consumed my thoughts.

  “Your friend Leif . . . ” I began, trying to piece together Caleb’s relationship with him—how he could live and work, day in and day out, with such a brute. I’d met Caleb two days ago and he’d yet to do anything I could deem suspicious. He hadn’t left me at the river. He’d brought Arden and me breakfast and lunch, towels and fresh rainwater to bathe in. He’d even swept the room for us when we were sleeping. “He’s quite the charmer,” I finished, unable to hide the edge in my voice.

  Caleb kept his eyes on the rocky cliff ahead of us, his sheath of arrows swinging on his shoulder. “I’m sorry he scared you last night. He was furious about the soldiers. ” One hand moved over the horse’s neck, combing out the knots in her thick black mane. “He’s convinced you made up that story about the little girl. There’s no reasoning with him. ”

  “Why would I lie about that? I saw her,” I said to Caleb’s back. “I was alone out there, and he practically threatened me. ”

  Caleb shook his head as we climbed the side of the hill, the horse’s uneven steps pitching us from one side to another. He didn’t think I’d seen a little girl either, but he believed I’d seen someone. “Leif wasn’t always like that. He used to be”—Caleb paused, searching for the right word—“better. ”

  We ducked under a low branch. “That’s hard to imagine. ” The leaves brushed over my spine as I ducked forward, careful to keep a space between us.

  Caleb grew quiet. “Leif was funny, once,” he finally said. “Really funny. We’d spend all day deconstructing buildings, brick by brick, and loading the materials onto trucks to be hauled to the City of Sand. Leif used to make up these songs while we worked. ” Caleb looked over his shoulder, his cheeks ruddy with a sudden smile.

  “What songs? What are you laughing about?”

  He turned back around. “You don’t want to know. ”

  “Try me. ”

  “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. ” He cleared his throat in mock seriousness. “My,” he crooned, his voice completely out of tune, “balls are sweating, my balls are sweating, I can’t keep my balls from sweating, noooo, noooo, noooo!”

  I leaned in, noticing the folds at the corner of his eyes and the faint brown spots that covered the top of his cheekbones. “Why is that funny? What are ‘balls’? Like the ball of your foot?”

  Caleb pulled at the reins of the horse and fell forward, his back heaving up and down with laughter.

  “What? What is it?” I asked.

  It took a moment for him to compose himself. “It’s . . . ” he said, his face crumpled. “Like these things that . . . ” he paused, as if deep in thought, and then shook his head suddenly. “No, I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s just funny, Eve. Trust me. ”

  I wanted to press him until he answered the question, but something told me the joke would be better left unexplained.

  The horse plodded up the rest of the hill and onto a landing. The lake stretched out before us, reflecting the tangerine sky. From up high we could see the field where we’d found the boar, patches of woods, and a rocky strip of beach.

  “There they are,” Caleb said, pointing to the herd of deer drinking at the water’s edge. Even from the cliff I could make out their golden coats and the horns that reached toward the treetops.

  Caleb guided the horse back down the path. “So what happened to him?” I finally asked, when we were halfway to the woods. “To Leif?”

  Caleb’s agile body moved with the horse’s, as if they were one. I watched the back of his gray T-shirt, focusing on a spot where the cloth split at the seams. I had the sudden urge to reach out and touch it, but I kept my hands firmly on Lila. “Leif had a twin brother then. Asher. Anything you said, they would always glance sideways at each other before responding, like Leif was checking what Asher would do first, or Asher was deciding whether to laugh. ” We started back through the woods, down to the rocky shore. “We went to work one day and Asher was sick. Looking back, I don’t think it was anything major, it couldn’t have been. But the guards were terrified. It was only a few years after the plague. ” He buried his hand into his brown hair. “When we came back his bunk was empty. He was gone. ”

  “He died?” I asked. The horse shifted beneath me and I stroked her side, suddenly thankful for her calm, warm presence.

  “No. ” Caleb shook his head. “They took him into the woods and left him there. ”

  “Who?”

  “The guards. They pinned his legs down with rocks. We could hear them bragging that night, about how they’d saved us all from the return of the plague. ”

  I brought my hand to my mouth, imagining one of the boys at camp, alone in the woods, sick, with his legs pressed to the ground.

  “It was like something inside of Leif broke. I never saw him—the old him—again. He was a different person after that night. ” Caleb dismounted and drew his bow and arrow, moving slowly toward the deer at the shore. A few raised their heads, but seeing Caleb, so calm, so still, they turned back toward the water.

  He took a few more steps before aiming at a doe off to the side. The arrow left the bow and a moment later plunged deep into the deer’s fleshy neck. The other animals scattered as the doe staggered back, stunned. Within seconds, Caleb released another arrow, which hit her in the side. Panicked, she ran into the water, then struggled back up the shore, a trail of blood in her wake.