by Seth Fishman
I open my mouth, about to make an indignant remark, but Veronica stands up and brushes past us. She stops in the doorway and looks over her shoulder, her bright eyes indifferent and bored. “You coming?” I look at Brayden, and he nods. I wish I understood how he can be so confident right now, how this is what we went looking for.
We follow her into the hallway, and she locks the door to the control room. “Listen, I just changed the code, so don’t try to go in there. Don’t go anywhere. Go back to the rec room.” She starts to give us directions, but Brayden interrupts.
“I remember the way,” he says. I’m impressed, because I’m definitely lost.
Veronica doesn’t seem to buy it either, so he points back the way we came. “First right, then another right, then a left and up a corridor, second door on the left.”
She thinks about it, maps that in her head and finally nods grudgingly. “Okay, good. This is going to be fine, you know?” Thud.
As soon as she’s out of sight, Brayden grabs hold of my arms. “I need you to go back to the rec room.” His eyes are intense, fierce and desperate. He’s up to something I don’t understand, but I know he’s trying to protect me. It’s like we’re back in the locker room at Westbrook, right after he knocked out the soldier.
“What? Why? Where are you going?” I try to keep my voice from sounding anxious. Not sure I succeed.
“Please, Mia. I don’t have much time.” He’s breathing hard, clearly troubled, and he flinches when another thud lands. This time, there’s actually a small crackling of rock somewhere overhead, not the sound I want to be hearing.
“I don’t get it. What’s going on with you?” I say, shaking my head. I don’t like this, or the anguish in his face. I touch his hand, and it’s burning. “No. I’m not going to leave you.”
I can see the warring emotions in his eyes, in the strain upon his face. He moves closer to me, and I can smell his sweat and his fear and heat. I tense up, pulling him to me.
“Do you trust me?” he whispers, his lips near mine.
“Brayden, what’s going on?”
“Do. You. Trust. Me?” He clenches my arms, and a part of me is scared, but another part, a stronger part, is incredibly excited. In the moment, I think about the locker room and the snowy fields outside Furbish, about the tunnel before Dad found us, but most of all, I think about the aqueduct, and how he came back for me. His fingers feel like fire, and my mouth’s so dry it’s hard to swallow.
“Absolutely,” I say. I hope he sees it in my eyes.
“Good.” He peers around as if someone were watching. “Follow me, then. But you have to do what I say.”
I pull away from him, concerned. “What’s going on?” The hallway is incredibly bright and endless, and I have to whisper to feel safe.
Brayden stares at me for a moment, considering. I try to keep his gaze. His jaw clenches like a stopwatch. “I’m going to save my parents.”
“What?” I say, shaking my head. I remember him in the parking lot, staring at the door. He’s been trying to get out of here. “How can you?”
“There’s not much time,” he says. “They’re stuck at Furbish, they contracted the virus, they need the vial.”
“But—”
“No, Mia!” he says fiercely, his teeth flashing. His brows furrow and his voice is angry, but I’m not scared of him. I’m scared for him. “I have to do this. There’s not enough time to wait for the well. It might be too late already. Your father will save everyone else. But I have to save my parents.”
I’m quiet, and his fury breaks, his forehead eases, and his eyes soften. His conviction turns into a plea. He needs me. He needs me to help him steal the vial from my dad. That’s why he didn’t want me with him: he didn’t want me to hurt my father. I put my hand on his pale cheek, sheened in sweat. Brayden’s not going to sit in the rec room waiting, like my father, for the water that might not be coming. Especially when his parents are in danger. I wouldn’t wait either, in his shoes.
“I’m coming with you.”
He takes my hand to his mouth and kisses it. His lips are chapped but tender. They make it hard for me to breathe. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Don’t be,” I say gently. “Lead the way.”
He stares at me for a moment more. He seems sad, with puppy-dog-brown eyes, as if putting me in danger is the last thing he intended. Like he’s about to argue.
“Brayden,” I say, “it’s now or never.”
He takes a breath, and his face lights up, his dimple coming back in his smile. And I know the pleasant feeling spreading inside me means I’m doing the right thing.
Down the halls, our feet silent in our slippers. I follow blindly but he moves with a mission, and with no lack of confidence. We hit the infirmary, where our skiwear is stored. I don’t even bother to take off my scrubs, I just add layer after layer. Because I left my jacket at the aqueduct, I grab Odessa’s. It’s heavy and warm and feels like armor. I put my hands in her pockets and am lucky I don’t cut myself, because inside is a serrated steak knife from the kitchen at Furbish Manor. I actually let it cut through the fabric so that it holds in place. I also find the little squishy blue-and-white berries from the greenhouse, which she must have stashed away. Can’t blame a botanist for hoarding. Satisfied, I move on: my boots are thick and impenetrable, and I can wiggle my toes this time. We don’t say a thing. We don’t have to.
Then we’re out again, my mind a mess of turns and junctions and the hum of the lighting. I fight down my panic at the endless tunnels and the sweat already gathering in my pits and trust Brayden. And sure enough, we find a familiar-looking set of doors. I enter the code, and it beeps green. I guess Veronica’s lock change applied only to the control room. Brayden was right; Dad really should have changed the codes.
But we hit the wrong room. The door opens on its massive hinges to reveal the Map Room. The map itself appears to float in the darkness, a single light illuminating the block of stone like a carefully curated museum exhibit. It’s hypnotic and beautiful; the painted images seem to glimmer. I swear they’re brighter than when we first saw the map. There’s something different going on here.
“Mia, this way,” Brayden hisses.
He’s already down a couple doors, trying the code. Another beep, another huge vault door opening.
I wave him on. “Go ahead. I need to see something.” He makes as if to protest but then changes his mind and disappears into the room where the vial of water is stored. I wonder, idly, what that room looks like. If there are rows of empty vials, storage containers for the water. Or if it sits there in a slot, illuminated just like this map.
I step into the room, and the air chills around me.
The map reads like a puzzle of an alien sky. I wish I could figure out what drew me here, what about the map has changed. I can feel it on the tip of my tongue, in the corner of my vision. In the darkness of the planetarium-style space, the images on the map might as well be a set of constellations that I have never seen before. Dad spoke before of grids, a certain number of images on each row and column, but now they seem to writhe in place, desperate to move. Without any context, though, there’s no way of knowing what any one of them means, what the shrieking red bird there or the giant ram’s horn here symbolizes. I find myself reaching out to touch its surface, but then imagine alarms blaring, so I stop.
Brayden is probably pulling the vial from the shelf now. He has to be quick, so I have to be quicker. The first time we looked at this, the focus was on that never-ending map in the bottom-right corner, the replica in miniature. But we didn’t pay much attention to the rest of it. The golden gates that seem to sparkle. Or the bloodshot eye of a wolf. The deep blue of the water, painted with a pigment that seems to have come from the sky.
And then I see it. Holy shit, I see it!
The map is a grid full of paintings, and the painting
s have changed. Aside from the replica map in the corner, the most eye-catching image is a spray of water, a fountain jetting into the air. At the top of its spray, the water curls over to fall back down to the earth. It’s a simple thing, but it’s somehow bright and brilliant and appears to shudder. After all the talk of healing water and the Fountain of Youth, of course that’s what stands out.
But higher up on the grid, something is entirely different. Last time, my eye kept drifting to the black hole, a single dark circle that seemed to somehow shine around its edges, like an eclipse. Dad and the others actually thought it was an eclipse, a solar event that marked a major religious ceremony like the drawings of the Aztecs or the Incas. But now I’m not so sure. The thing is, I’ve seen this image before, and suddenly I am certain. This is not a solar eclipse. It’s a unique perspective, one I stared at for days deep down inside my childhood well, looking up, where all I could see were the flashes of light bursting around the edges. That hole is not an eclipse, because it is the well, the spring where the water comes from. I know this now because it’s blue, shimmering and filled with water. Dad was right, the water will come today.
I look closer. I can’t believe it. My arms tingle, goose bumps raised so high they hurt. The painting has changed. What is this? Magic? Has Dad seen this? Am I the only one who knows? The well is full. The water is here.
My legs literally weaken from excitement. I shift my gaze around the map, seeing if I can find any other differences in my memory of the images. There’s a pair of high gates, closed if I recall, but they’re now open, and there’s a road in between them. Farther down the map, there’s an intricately depicted city, pulsingly gold. There’s a thin figure, nondescript, so blank that it might not indicate male or female, but its skin is white as milk. It appears a few times on the map, the same figure. But this time, there’s one figure that looks different. I’m not sure I’d normally notice this, so it might not really have been different, but now that I’m looking for differences, I can’t help noticing that in all the other images of figures, the eyes are slits. Slits, that is, that made me think nothing special before. But now this one figure, I remember him from last time I was here—he’s upside down, his hands pointing below, and he’s painted right in front of the blue of the well.
His eyes are open. His eyes are open!
The others, they don’t have open eyes, and now I think those slits mean they aren’t awake. Suddenly I remember Dad’s story, about how their eyes were blue! I hadn’t thought on it before, but he’s right. If the blue in the well means the water has returned, what do the open eyes mean?
“Do you see anything you like?”
I am so scared I can’t help but scream, my hand flying to my mouth. Chuck is there, standing with his legs apart, his face stern and disappointed and bemused at once. In Chuck’s hands is a long length of black tubing. He must have seen the open doorways as he went for a replacement part. Hopefully, his finding me is just very bad luck.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Your father’s like that too. He’ll just come here and stare, for hours. You’d think that after thirty-four years, he’d have learned something by now. But then again he’s always been a bit of a zealot, always looking at that thing even after he figured out that the water flowed on a cycle.”
I try to calm myself. Chuck seems relaxed, more like he caught me out of bed than anything else. My voice is dry when I speak. “You don’t buy all this?” I ask, saying the first thing that comes to mind. “You don’t think the water is coming, do you?”
“Buy?” he repeats, smiling, his long face peering down at me. “I buy it all. I will buy a lot more after all this is done. No, your dad thinks this all means something. I think it’s just a magical collusion of natural forces, creating a universal healing property. A very lucrative one.” He laughs once to himself, lifting the tubing to his chest, thinking of something far away. “I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time here. But it’ll all be worth it. I’ll be known as the doctor who cured illness, every illness.” He looks around the room, almost with nostalgia. He even pats the door gently. “But, man, I can’t wait for this all to end.”
“But what about the people dying? The infected?”
He nods thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s tragic. I truly think so. But when you’ve been around the water as long as I have, you learn what it can do. No one will be sick for long. Now, let’s get moving and check in on the others. We’ll see if anyone else decided to wander away.”
He holds out a hand, not at all threateningly, and at that moment, an arm comes down hard on the back of his head. His eyes roll and his mouth slackens, and he falls, knees first, hitting the ground; at the same time I hear another reverberating thud.
“Whoa, you didn’t have to do that,” I say. “He wasn’t trying to hurt me.” How did he learn to hit that way?
Brayden just shrugs and flashes the vial of water at me. Is it even water? Can it be called that? It’s clear and pure and healing, but is it water? Brayden checks Chuck’s pulse, then his pockets. He pulls a key card and waves it triumphantly in the air, then tosses it to me. “This could be helpful.” He’s smiling now, flipping his hair back as he takes my hand. “You okay?”
I nod dumbly, still trying to get over the slumped body on the floor and that this is the second time Brayden has knocked someone out for me. I open my mouth to tell him about the map, just as Brayden hisses sharply, “Someone’s coming!”
I can hear the footsteps now. Nondescript, beating loudly, they could be anyone’s, even my dad’s. And for a second, I want to stay here and wait for it to be my father, and for him to come into the light and for me to show him what I just learned. But I guess that’s impossible and now I feel like I’m betraying my father. I’m leaving here, I’m stealing the vial and I’m choosing Brayden. Not him, not my father, but this boy.
For a heartbeat, I pause. I almost just give it up. This is crazy and stupid. But Brayden needs my help. And I trust him.
We take off down the hall, away from those nameless footsteps. I don’t look to see if anyone’s following. Brayden and I race through the Cave, deeper and deeper, until the concrete walls go rough and turn to stone, and I can feel the air around me get hotter and muggier. Sweat stings my eyes, and my hiking boots feel heavy as I run. The ceiling seems to get lower, and I find myself ducking down, scared I’ll smack my head into the wall. I look behind me, but the light globes on the ground begin to fade out.
Suddenly, the Cave expands, and we find ourselves in a familiar setting. I put my hands on my head to control my ragged breathing; my coach would be proud. There before us are the greenhouses, now filled with a new meaning. Each house a birthplace of a unique life form, all created through experimentation with the water and genetics. I bet Dad’s pulling the stuff from the well right now. As we walk between the opaque windowed units, I can’t help but think that just one leaf from one of the plants inside would be enough to set Odessa’s professional career for life.
Seeing the rear exit of the cave gives me another hit of energy, enough that I have to shake my arms to release the jitters. I reach unconsciously for goggles to pull down onto my face.
I realize, as Brayden must surely, that we might have a difficult time descending from the wrecked remains of the aqueduct station, but that isn’t what matters now. If Odessa is any proof, then even one drop of this vial could save either of our lives from whatever Sutton and his men might throw at us. As if reading my mind, Brayden says, “Holding this makes me feel invincible.”
“But you haven’t had any of the pure water.”
“Still,” Brayden replies. “Now take it.” He hands over the vial to me for some reason, like it’s my right. I don’t argue, but secure it in my pocket, snug, where I can feel it digging against my hip.
The heavy metal door seems insignificant now, compared to the vastness of the Cave, but it’s a porthole to something much
bigger. When we open those doors, it’ll be like we’re moving backward, from the Cave to the aqueduct to Furbish Manor, then through the woods to Westbrook.
Brayden’s not even looking at the door. In fact, he’s staring at me. The corners of his lips turn downward, making him seem sad and broken. His brow is in a knot, and his eyes . . . they catch my gaze but are glassy and seem to be lost somewhere else. He blinks and suddenly is here, his eyes clear and bright, dimple and all, but his face remains miserable. He closes the distance between us and puts his hand to my neck, his thumb resting against my cheek, where it presses lightly. For some reason—reflex maybe—I grow incredibly embarrassed and instinctively try to duck away, but his gentle hand turns solid, and he keeps me there; in fact, he pulls me closer.
“Mia . . . I’m sorry.”
I’m about to say, for what? But then he kisses me, as if he doesn’t want to hear me speak. The kiss takes all my thoughts away. Our breaths go desperate, and the taste of his tongue lingers. I feel the thrill of his body against mine, and I tug at his jacket and nip at the tight skin of his scar, somehow desperate for his touch. We’re about to leave the safety of the Cave, and who knows when I’ll be able to kiss him like this again?
“Mia,” he whispers as we kiss, and I pause for air but not to answer. “Mia, stop it . . . We have to stop . . .”
His tone is weird and splashes like cold water against me. I pull back, confused.
“Mia,” he says, his voice serious, “I’m sorry.”
Brayden steps away from me, but his eyes don’t meet mine, and the smile that was thick on my face has vanished. He turns and walks to the door. I wonder—if I had more than a second, would I have figured out what was going on? But I didn’t. I watch Brayden swipe Chuck’s ID and hear it ping with an echoing, metallic clank. He moves back from the door and, almost absentmindedly, he hands me the ID. Brayden stares at the door, and I flip the plastic card in my hand end over end. The door lurches. I remember how, on the way in, it took the three boys all their combined strength to move that door, but now, as if by magic, it swings inward, and we stare at the shape of a man, his smile dripping, his eyes bright.