by Carrie Ryan
“We’re leaving tomorrow. The path continues on the other side of the village and you and everyone else will go down that and I’ll pull down the fences—flood the village with Mudo so the Recruiters can’t get through.” His voice is so flat, so impersonal that I flinch.
I turn back around and look at the mirror. Look at what used to be my home. I’ve only just found it and already I have to leave. I close my eyes, searching for a memory to hold on to. Something to take with me. But nothing comes. Carefully I pull the picture of New York City off the wall and slip it into my pocket.
“Your mother—I mean Mary—is with Cira now trying to do something about the blood infection but she wants to talk to you,” he says in that same voice.
“So you know,” I say, not even bothering to ask it as a question. He knows that Mary isn’t my mother.
He shrugs and walks out of the little cottage. His indifference stings me. He’s supposed to be my friend. He’s supposed to be someone I can trust—someone I thought I was falling in love with. I rush to catch up with him as he weaves along empty walkways.
“Catcher, wait,” I call out to him, but he doesn’t even slow down. When I finally reach him I grab his arm, the heat of his skin a searing reminder of his infection. I pull him around until he faces me.
His eyes are ragged and red. I haven’t noticed how hollow his cheeks have become and I wonder if he’s been eating recently.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Gabry?” he asks, and in his words I can hear the despair. He grips my shoulders so desperately that I’m almost afraid of him. “You could have trusted me,” he says softly, his voice cracking.
I don’t know what to tell him, how to explain how I didn’t even want to face the idea of who I was before. He moves his hand from my shoulder to my neck, his fingers trailing along the base of my skull, warming me. He leans down until his forehead touches mine and between us is nothing but heat.
“Do you ever think about what might have happened that night if I’d climbed the coaster?” he asks. “How things might have been different?” His thumb slides along my neck. “If only I hadn’t been afraid of heights.”
I think back to that night. I can see the outline of the chipped unicorn on the carousel. I can smell the salt in the air, taste it against the back of my throat. I remember how I gave him an excuse to stay behind.
I’ve thought of that moment so many times. I’ve replayed that night a million different ways. If I hadn’t been so scared; if I’d only waited a heartbeat longer before swinging, none of this would have happened. None of us would be here now.
But I don’t tell him this. Instead I say, “My mother used to tell me that sometimes it’s worth letting go of those things, worth forgetting.”
He smiles just a little, the corner of his mouth curving up.
“You survived, that’s what’s important. That’s what matters.” I slip my fingers between his until we’re gripping each other.
“I don’t know,” he says, staring at the place where our bodies touch. “I don’t know what the difference between surviving and existing is anymore. What are the Mudo? They exist. I think life has to be about more than that—or else what separates us from them?”
I think of Elias then. Of the night we escaped the town and how he stood by the bridge with the Souler he called Kyra and told me that there was no difference between us and them. I didn’t want to believe what he was saying then but now I’m not so sure. It’s hard to stand in a forgotten village in the last gasp of survival and wonder if that’s all we’re doing anymore. Struggling to hold on against a losing battle.
I swallow, thinking about what I wish I’d told Elias then. “What about love?” I ask Catcher softly. “That’s something that separates us. That’s what life is about.”
He pulls his head away from mine and traces the edge of my face with his fingers. His smile is wistful and it scares me because I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know who he is anymore—not the way I used to.
“What happens when you don’t have love?” he asks. “What happens when you can’t?”
A hollow feeling begins to expand inside me. He sounds the way Cira did the last time I saw her before she cut herself: He sounds like he’s giving up. “You have me,” I tell him. “You have me and Cira.”
He steps back away from me and I hold on to him as long as I can until we’re no longer touching. Around us are empty cottages and cabins, weeds and the whirring of crickets as evening begins to pull tight around the village.
“Could you have ever loved me?” he asks. His voice is raw.
My breath catches. “Yes,” I whisper, feeling as though I’m losing something by saying the word. I try to remember my dreams from before but I can’t anymore. Once I was able to see a future for us so clearly. My life was Catcher; it was being his. I always thought that losing him would be losing that future as well. But now when I close my eyes and try to imagine Catcher and me together I see nothing.
He doesn’t ask the question I’m most afraid of: Do I love him now? Because I don’t know anymore. My eyes blur with tears and I bite my lip trying to hold them back.
Catcher stares at his hands. “Do you think there’s anything left in them after they turn?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I think about the Soulers and their Mudo. I wonder if they believe there’s something left, something they’re preserving. If it really is eternal life. The ultimate resurrection. I used to think the Mudo were nothing but monsters but now I’m not sure.
“I think I’m scared that’s what I’ll become,” he says. “I think that’s what terrifies me the most. That somehow I’ll be trapped.”
I don’t want to think about Catcher like that, don’t want to imagine having to kill him one day. I reach out and take his hand in mine again. “I won’t let that happen.”
He follows the outline of my fingers with his thumb. The silence weaves around us.
“Elias is a good person,” Catcher finally says. “He looks at you the same way I used to. The same way I wish I could now.”
I can feel my skin turning red, heat crawling up my neck. I want to tell Catcher that Elias is a liar; that all this time he’s kept my past from me.
“Elias isn’t you,” I say instead. “You’ve known me your whole life. We’ve always known each other. It’s supposed to be us.” Why can’t Catcher understand this? Why does he keep pulling away from me?
He trails his hand along my jaw, tilting my head back toward his, and I think that maybe this time he’ll kiss me. For once it will be like before. “He’ll keep you safe,” he whispers instead.
“You keep me safe, Catcher,” I tell him, needing him to understand. Afraid that if I can’t make him see that he’s the future I’d always expected, it will never happen. That I don’t know what will happen instead.
He shakes his head. “I can’t keep anyone safe anymore,” he says. “Cira’s asking for you because she wants to say good-bye. She’s dying, Gabry.” And with that he turns and continues down the walkway, leaving me alone in the shattered evening air, trying to force my body to remember to breathe.
I follow Catcher through the cluster of overgrown cottages to Harry’s, which sits apart from everything else, far away from the huddle of the large burned building that hulks at the other end of the village. Harry’s house is large and spacious with rambling rooms surrounding a large courtyard. Gardens thrive around the outside, elegantly drawn waterways with waterfalls meandering through beds of flowers and past rows of neatly planted vegetables. The black dog lies in the doorway to a patio, his nose and ears in the sun but the rest of him tucked into shade. He rumbles as Catcher draws near, lifting a lip to bare his teeth.
“He smells the infection,” Catcher tells me, pointing to the dog. “His name is Odys. Harry trained him to alert him to the Mudo.”
The dog’s growling is another reminder of how different Catcher is now and I see on his face how much it bothers him. Cira sits on a bench sur
rounded by bright yellow blooms. She smiles when she sees me but she doesn’t bother getting up. The sun is just hovering over the trees, a last gasp of daylight filtering through the leaves of the Forest.
I notice how frail she looks, how thin. Her breathing is shallow, her lips dry and cracked. I sit down next to her and take her hand in mine. It burns hotter than Catcher’s skin, the blood infection raging inside her. I clutch at her fingers as tears burn the back of my throat and I smell the sharp sting of herbs from my mother’s remedies that are too late to draw out the sickness.
Elias comes into the courtyard with a lantern and a jug of water. I’m instantly aware of his presence, of his every move and breath. He barely glances at me as he offers Cira something to drink and she waves it away. Just as he turns to leave she asks him, “Do you believe what the other Soulers believe?” Her voice is raspy, uneven.
Elias stiffens. He darts a glance at me before asking her, “What do you mean?”
She smiles slightly. “In resurrection. That the Mudo have a second life. A second chance.”
Behind Cira I see Catcher hovering in the shadow of a doorway to a darkened room. He stiffens at her question but stays silent. It’s hard to see his expression in the gloaming but his eyes are tired.
Cira prods Elias. “The Soulers talked about it. When we were all held together back in Vista. They told us about their beliefs,” she says. “They said it was another way of living. That it’s a resurrection.”
“They’re a crazy cult,” Catcher says from the darkness.
Cira closes her eyes. I doubt she even knew Catcher was listening. When she opens them again there’s a spark in them.
She turns to face him and says, “But look at you, Catcher! You’re infected but you’re still alive. It’s been weeks and you’re still here!”
He stays in the shadow, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling. I don’t understand what Cira’s trying to say, what her point is. All I can think about is how her fingers are hot against my own, every inch of her a burning fire. She pushes from the bench and walks over to her brother, her legs unsteady. “What if it’s my only chance?” she asks. “You know as well as I do that I can’t go with you tomorrow. I’ll never be able to keep up.”
“Don’t talk like that, Cira,” he says.
I glance at Elias. I feel uncomfortable watching this, as if we’re intruding, but he’s focused on Cira, his head tilted to the side as if he’s thinking.
“What if I’m like you, Catcher?” she asks, resting her hand on his shoulder.
And suddenly I understand everything. Why she went into the Forest before. What she’s planning to do now. I start to protest, to say anything to stop her but Elias presses his fingers to my arm, keeping me back.
“It’s not worth the risk,” Catcher tells Cira. Anguish laces his voice; I can feel it in every beat of my heart.
“There is no risk, Catcher. Don’t you understand that?” Cira’s almost shouting now. “I’m going to die. Either here when the Recruiters come or on the path when I can’t keep up. The infection isn’t getting better. The fever isn’t breaking.”
I want to close my eyes, to turn my head away. But Elias just slips his hand down my arm until he’s grasping mine, his touch giving me strength and comfort.
Catcher’s fingers clench the doorsill. “And what happens if it doesn’t work?” he growls at his sister, echoing my own thoughts. “What happens if you turn into one of them?”
She puts her hand over his. “Then you leave me that way.”
A sob breaks from him then. “You can’t ask me to do that, Cira,” he says. My heart aches watching them.
Cira leans her head against his shoulder, their backs to us. It’s an image I’ve seen a thousand times over my life: Cira leaning in to her brother. Her tilting her face up to him trying to make him laugh when she tells a joke, to make him relent when she’s gotten into trouble, to get him to give her whatever it is she’s asking for.
I know the look on her face without having to see it. And I know how this will end. Tears burn hot and salty against my throat.
“I’m not asking you, Catcher,” Cira says so softly I can barely hear her.
I can’t stand to listen anymore. I can’t face the pain, can’t face the truth that my best friend is dying and wants to become Mudo. She can’t know if she’ll be immune—none of us can know. What if it doesn’t work?
I pull my hand from Elias’s and run from the courtyard, sprinting blindly through rooms until I burst from the house and into the evening. I race through the shadows, dodging around cottages and cabins. In the distance I see a hill at the edge of the village and I sprint up it until every part of my body screams for me to stop.
I stand looking out over the Forest just as the sun sinks against the treetops. Behind me I hear Elias approaching. I know his smell, the rhythm of his breathing, the sound of his movements.
“You can’t let her,” I say as he grabs my arm and turns me around. “You told me yourself that you don’t believe what the Soulers say about resurrection. You told me none of it’s true.” I pound my fists on his chest and he doesn’t stop me. “It’s just some stupid cult nonsense. You can’t let her do that to herself.”
“It’s not my choice to make, Gabry,” he says.
“But she’s going to kill herself,” I wail at him. “We’re supposed to protect people. It’s what it means to be human. We’re supposed to take care of them. We can’t …” I choke back the words, trying to control my breathing. “I can’t let her do it,” I say, letting the hot tears trace down my cheeks. “What if it doesn’t work? She’ll be gone.”
Elias wraps his hands around mine, pulling me to him. He’s safe and warm and strong.
“Is this all there is?” I ask him. I’m so tired of this struggle, of trying to survive when it seems like there’s no point to it. When everyone I love dies or changes and I’m left alone. “Is this what life is about? Waiting for death? Looking for it? Inviting it in?”
“No,” he says, his voice barely a whisper against my cheek. “That’s not what life is.”
“Then what is it?” I need him to give me a reason to keep fighting. To keep pushing forward even though it’s so hard. Even though I’m not sure I can.
“This,” he says, and he presses his lips to mine.
His kiss is warm. It’s more full of life than any moment I’ve ever experienced. It’s heat, it’s pressure and need and desire. His fingers tangle in my braid, bringing me closer to him and my hands pull to his back, feeling the flex of his shoulders under my touch. Sparks shatter in my head and I understand in this moment what he means about this being what life is.
If I could stay here forever, just like this, just the two of us entwined in the darkness, I would.
Elias breaks away first and I lean back in to him but he steps away and my lips only brush the heat of the air. At every spot he touched my skin tingles. I raise my fingers to my lips, feeling dazed. Wanting more. For the first time I’m content with who I am; where I am. I don’t want to go back in time. I don’t want to erase everything that’s happened because I don’t want to erase this moment.
“You don’t know how many times I wanted to call you Abby or Abigail,” he says, his voice hoarse with longing. “All the times growing up when I’d look at Annah and think about you.”
His words strike together in my head, leaving a trail of chills down my back. A thought occurs to me that makes my chest ache. “Did you … do you think about Annah when you look at me?”
His eyes become guarded. “I think about her all the time,” he says. “I’ve spent so many months going from town to town and city to city looking for her.”
“Am I just a replacement for her?” I ask. I think about everything he’s done for Annah, all the things he’s been through, the guilt he feels. I wouldn’t blame him for thinking of her when he looks at me. But I need him to understand that I’m not her. I’m never going to replace Annah.
Hi
s face goes white and his mouth opens. He’s shaking his head but still not saying anything. He looks both terrified and angry but most of all sick to his stomach. I wait for him to tell me that I’m crazy, that I’m wrong. But instead he just turns and walks away, leaving me there in the darkness with the taste of him still on my lips.
The moon is only a sliver in the sky, its sharp edges blurred by the watery heat of the summer night as I walk back to the garden where I left Cira. My mind roars, delighting in the memory of Elias’s kiss and then twisting when I think that he might just want me because I remind him of someone else.
When I get to the courtyard it’s empty and my heart begins to beat staccato. Slowly, I walk over to the bench where Cira last sat. Draped in the middle of it is a small object and I bend over, tracing my finger along the cord of Cira’s superhero necklace. I pick it up feeling the weight of Cira’s hopes and dreams—her belief that someone out there was greater than us and would save us.
Around me crickets whir and a bullfrog grunts but otherwise I hear nothing but the distant Mudo moans. Something shuffles behind me and I turn, dropping my hand to the knife on my hip.
My mother walks out of one of the rooms bordering the garden. She hesitates before coming closer, just a brief momentary pause, and I know something’s wrong.
“What?” I ask her, not ready to bear the weight of something new.
“It’s Cira,” she says.
I close my eyes and let my shoulders fall. She steps closer and places her hands on my arms. “What?” I ask, my voice barely more than the brush of the breeze over water.
“She went to the Forest. She asked her brother to get her something to eat and when he was gone she snuck away.”
“What happened?” I whisper, still a shard of hope left in me that she was right about the possibility of being immune. My mother’s hesitation tells me everything.