The only programs on television are the news twice a day, and a movie at night. There are seven movies, one for each day of the week. They’re all silly and lack an actual point. Sometimes they’re about Partners laughing, enjoying an Outing, or they’re simply funny, about people falling down or running into walls. The Others play the part of benevolent benefactors, delivering meals and graciously patching up the clumsy humans. Mr. Morgan laughs at the pictures. I don’t find them particularly funny, but make sure to chuckle at the appropriate moments.
As I watch, my brain wrestles with other matters. How to broach the subject of being Other to Lucas if we are able to talk later. How to survive the interviews without being discovered.
Why Ko thinks humanity is in danger, or that Lucas and I can somehow save them if they really are.
Nine-thirty rolls around, finally. Mr. Morgan turns on the news and I escape to the welcome solitude of the bedroom. At ten the television clicks off and he walks to the bottom of the stairs, yelling up at me “Good night, Thea.”
“‘Night, Dad.”
He shuffles into the bedroom that’s now just his and closes the door with a soft click. I change into thick sweatpants and a sweatshirt, then flick off my bedroom light. The window seat offers a clear view of the street and I curl up among the pillows to wait. A Warden passes at ten thirty, the streetlight reflecting off his polished black shoes. He gives each house a cursory glance; all the lights are extinguished.
Lucas needs to know about the night Mrs. Morgan lost her mind. The revelation that the Others have brainwashed everyone but us strikes me as equal parts insane and obvious, now that I know. I’ve thought about that night in such detail so many times, but the idea will be new to Lucas.
My story organizes itself in my mind, orders the details of that night. The worst night of my life. The way Elij changed Mr. Morgan’s and the Healer’s memories. The breezy presence in my head as he looked into my eyes. The way Deshi seemed to cause the young Other pain by looking at him. It seems to indicate they’re able to enter one another’s minds as well.
My theory leaves me with two horrible questions. First, what happened to Mrs. Morgan at dinner? If the Others brainwash humans to keep them happy and content, why did it stop working on her? Second, I’m not mind controlled and neither is Lucas, but why? The obvious answer is that’s what makes us Dissidents. It’s why we experience bad feelings, and really good ones too. It doesn’t explain the fact that I can melt stuff with a finger, but one thing at a time.
It’s strange. I’ve grown up knowing I’m different but never truly considered I might be Other.
A different Warden passes under the lamppost. Eleven o’clock.
When he turns the corner I grab a blanket off my bed and sneak down the stairs. I hold my breath at the tiny sound the door makes when it clicks open, and step out onto the back porch. At first I see nothing, and disappointment clogs my heart.
A paper cup with a thin string trailing out the bottom catches my eye, mostly because trash is rarely lying around. There’s a slip of paper trapped by the rocks filling the bottom of the cup.
You’re going to think this is so nuts, unless it works. I think I used to play with one of these when I was little. Dump out the rocks, pull the string tight, and put the open end to your ear.
It’s not addressed to me or signed. Lucas wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave our names out for anyone to stumble across. It does sound crazy, but we’ve got nothing to lose, so instead of wasting time questioning him I dump out the rocks and follow his instructions. I jump as the cup vibrates in my hand and Lucas’s voice comes through.
“Can you hear me, Althea?”
I take the cup from my ear and press it around my lips. “Yes.”
“Wow, it works. I thought I dreamed it.”
“Do you have weird dreams sometimes that feel more like memories?”
“Yes. I think they are memories of my real family. They call me fils, and it makes me happy. I named the fish because of that.”
The cup is still in my hand for several seconds. Now that we’re talking, a shy nervousness grips me. We only have about twenty minutes until the next patrol.
“Tell me where you spend your seasons,” he asks.
It’s an easy question, one with a simple answer. “In the winter I stay with the Clarks in Iowa. And the spring, Portland with the Hammonds.”
“What about your summers?” He asks the question casually, but there’s a reason, I know there is.
I have a theory on this, and am happy to have the chance to test it. “It’s never summer.”
“What do you mean it’s never summer?”
“I think you know very well what I mean. I bet in your world it’s never winter.”
“You’re right. Spring here. Summer in Georgia. Used to spend my autumns in Portland.” Stunned intrigue fights with awe in his voice.
Understanding dawns like a new day, inevitable and bright. “That’s why you’re always cold and I’m always hot. I mean, it doesn’t explain anything, but it sort of makes sense.” Another question, buoyed by Ko’s necklace message, niggles at me. “So what do you think brought us together here, now? What changed?”
Silence stretches between us. Something has changed. I felt it even before the Wardens appeared at our Outing, announced they were observing us, and began to ferry Terminal students away. It’s as though someone, somewhere has kept us apart for sixteen years. The whole situation is so carefully orchestrated, the way we go to the same places but never meet. The giant hand behind the mystery of our lives, invisible until now, seems as plain as the nose on my face.
Whose hand, or what’s hand, remains to be seen.
The cup startles me when it jumps with Lucas’s response. “Something. The only way we’re going to find out what is by hearing what they’re asking in those interviews.”
I nod, then remember he can’t see me. “Yes. We have to know what they’re looking for before we try to fool them into thinking we’re not it.” The cup lays flat against my ear for a while, and when I’m sure Lucas isn’t going to respond, I hold it around my lips, doubt pressing against my heart. “Lucas, how are we going to fight the Others? It’s ludicrous. We have nothing to fight them with.”
“There must be a way, Althea. We’re different. We just have to figure out what it is.”
CHAPTER 18.
Early the next week, we get the chance to spend the hour after Cell alone. In a disturbing and strange development, Deshi and Leah have begun courting. I didn’t want to believe it when he put his arm around her at Cell, but Leah told us at lunch that their Parental Sanction is this evening. They’ll be tied up until after dinner. Perfect.
Lucas brought me his note from Ko, which I asked to see because it’s not in a necklace at all. It’s written on some paper tucked in a funny plastic case, and I shove it into my backpack for later examination. The afternoon is windy and cold; strands of my hair keep sticking on my lips. Sitting outside is uncomfortable now as the weather turns colder, more bitter, every day. Autumn is on its way out, winter biting its heels like a rabid dog.
We’re allowed to be in the park, but the cameras on the boundary and in the occasional tree still make me nervous. Lucas picked a good spot, hidden both from the fence and eyeball-harboring trees, but the Wardens are out there. We sit close together on our spread-out jackets and mutter in low voices.
“We have to figure out what makes us different and how to use it to fight them.” Lucas waits for my reply, propped against the trunk of an elm tree.
Anger simmers at the mention of the Others, the need to expose them for what they are lighting a dormant fire. I scoot closer and pick up his hand. “It’s not like the ways we’re unusual are threatening. I mean, we aren’t always happy, we question the authority and goodness of the Others, and no one seems truly comfortable around us.”
We are also both shadows. But not to each other.
“And we smell weird, let’s not forget that.
Oh, and we can heat up or cool down a room like nobody’s business.” Lucas grins, turning my stomach inside out.
Silence stretches for several seconds while my thoughts rearrange into coherence. Taking deep breaths steadies me a bit. I make a mental note to avoid looking at his smile if I intend to utter intelligible language afterward.
The tweeting and rustling of the birds outside the boundary permeate the afternoon. The pleasant strains soak in through my ears and spread through me leaving longing in their wake. As I watch, one of the pretty blue ones flies too close to the boundary. There’s a loud zap and vibrant feathers waft to the ground.
“Also, they can’t control our minds,” I whisper.
His head jerks up, confused eyes searching my face. “What are you talking about?”
“Lucas, I have to tell you something about the night Mrs. Morgan disappeared.”
He sits up straight. “Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. How weird was it having Wardens in the house, watching you? I don’t know how you did it.”
“Things were crazy. Between all of the kids disappearing, your lies about the Administrator’s office, and Deshi’s asking me to the mixer, my nerves were wound pretty tight.”
“Deshi asked you to the mixer?” Lucas’s features pinch together, and his voice sounds strange, tight.
“Yes, but that’s not the point. A few days later I got home in a bad mood and Mrs. Morgan brought up the Wardens taking a baby next door. All those emotions and anger festering inside me—when they mentioned the neighbor’s baby Breaking with such flippant attitudes, I lost it.”
“What do you mean, you lost it? Like sweated them out?”
At first, his joking tone irritates me. How can he think of teasing at a time like this? Then again, his ability to lighten my often too-serious demeanor is one of the things I like most about him.
I like him.
The thought stalls my story for a minute, causing Lucas to think he’s annoyed me with the interruption.
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“It’s okay. It did get pretty hot in there. I boiled some water. And burnt the custard. Anyway, lost it as in I stood up at the table and yelled at them. About not caring about the baby, mostly, but also why they don’t care when I leave. I shut up pretty fast—I realized my behavior was not Acceptable—but I couldn’t switch my mind off. Mr. Morgan didn’t think anything about it, just sat there chomping on his duck. Mrs. Morgan, though…when I looked at her eyes I could tell she saw me. Like saw me.”
“You mean she didn’t just accept that you belong there?”
“Exactly. She was scared about it, too. She shook all over, pointed at me and asked Mr. Morgan who I was and where I’d come from. She backed up and grabbed the doorknob like she was going to run away.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried calming her down, so did Mr. Morgan. Nothing worked. When I went up to her, she shrank away, scared to death of me. She asked me what I am. I had to do something. I couldn’t let her run all over town talking about me not being her daughter, not being like everyone else. So I pushed her and she banged her head on the door and passed out.”
“You what?”
I shrug to hide how appalling my own actions seem to me and finish the story, including the appearance of Deshi and the talk about shedding veils.
Lucas falls silent and lies flat on his back. After a minute he pats the blanket by his side, and I stop staring and copy his pose. It’s odd, relaxing like this. It’s not natural for me. After a few minutes his hand finds mine again. We stay still, the breeze sifting through the bare branches and the distant sounds of the animals mingling together in muted harmony.
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.”
Dark Roses: Eight Paranormal Romance Novels Page 43