The Body Market

by Donna Freitas

  The snow made a satisfying crunch under my feet as I crossed the yard to the old shed that stood against a row of trees. Apps were designed to mimic and heighten the experiences of the Real World beyond anything a body could do, but there were always things they left out. The crunch and slide of snow were among the many things I’d learned to appreciate.

  Inside the shed I knew I would find something that would be useful today.

  I opened the door, and it was just where I remembered.

  A bicycle was propped against the far wall; I’d seen the Keeper use it occasionally. I could ride one in the App World, so I bet I could ride one here, too. I wheeled it out of the shed and down the path to the road beyond the grounds, then I got on. The bike wobbled as I pushed the pedals forward and down, uncertain at first. It nearly toppled when I leaned too much to the right. But soon I got it going fairly steadily, and eventually I was cycling as sure as if I was walking on two feet.

  The wind was cold on my face.

  I didn’t mind.

  As I pumped and pushed the bike forward, I nearly forgot my plans for the long day ahead. I laughed as I coasted down a hill and wove my way into town and along deserted streets.

  The sun was peeking above the horizon when I reached my destination. The Water Tower rose before me, glowing blue like an ocean lit up against the night. Blue and shimmery like the old kind of technology. The tiny screens Zeera gave me were stuffed into the pocket of my coat. As I took in the constantly moving facade of the building, I wondered again if the similarities were intentional or if the architect simply was inspired by the proximity of the sea encircling the city.

  It seemed like there must be a connection.

  The Water Tower was the most otherworldly thing in this very real city.

  It stood out like a portal to another place.

  I hopped down from the bike and walked it into the lobby, deserted at this early hour. I hid it behind a large metal door that was propped open and took a deep breath. I hadn’t been here since the day Inara sold me out to my sister.

  Hopefully this visit wouldn’t end the same way.

  I took the stairs. I made my way slowly, stopping to rest. This building was like a portal, a place connecting the past to the future, my virtual existence and my real embodied present. It held memories, both good and terrible. The closer I got to the floor with the viewing platform, the closer I got to seeing if I was wrong—wrong to come here, and wrong about what I thought I might find when I arrived. The higher I rose, the more dilapidated the stairway became, until I had to climb through the hole in a metal gate that warned me to Keep Out. Soon I was stepping through total darkness, feeling my way carefully, my hand on the rail. When I reached the last floor I pushed through the door into the lobby of the viewing deck.

  And I stopped.

  Loneliness swept over me like the wind that swirled and beat against the glass walls of this room. I was a Single from the App World, so by definition I was accustomed to the solitary nature of what this meant. But life since I’d come here had become so complicated, the people around me so conflicted with their various allegiances and agendas, I’d never felt more alone in my life.

  An image of Trader flashed in my head.

  Maybe, just maybe, I had a brother to get to know.

  This thought was followed by another about Kit.

  And . . . maybe I had someone that I might. . . I didn’t allow this thought to reach its end. I wasn’t sure how to finish it.

  Right then, something in the viewing deck lobby caught my eye. It glinted bright in the red ray of the morning sun and I went to it. When I was close enough to see what it was I halted.

  My stomach turned.

  A knife stuck out of the wall—a knife I knew. A knife I’d used once.

  It pinned a piece of paper there.

  I studied the swirl and shine of its mother-of-pearl handle, the way it seemed to capture the pale blue and beige of the sea’s shallow waters. It was a beautiful thing. I would have marveled at its artistry had the sight of it not provoked such nausea.

  Were it not the same knife I’d plunged into the eye of my sister.

  I swallowed hard.

  Then I wrapped my hand around the end of it. It vibrated in my palm like a living thing. I yanked it from the wall. The paper came away with it, pierced by the blade.

  On it, someone had drawn a map. It led out of the city, back toward Briarwood to a spot on the very tip of the island. Alongside the mark were two looping initials. T. S.

  Trader Specter.

  I knew it.

  I knew that if I was to find Trader, if he was to find me, the Water Tower would be the place he’d leave a sign or a message. Where I could leave one for him, and maybe he would get it. It’s where Inara came to find me and turn me in to my sister, and Trader had been here that day. I examined the knife in my hand again. Turned it over in my palm, studying the blade, wondering who had taken the time to scrub it clean of my sister’s blood. I’d wanted a message from Trader, I just hadn’t expected it to come with such a fraught reminder attached.

  What did it mean? Why would he do such a thing?

  I pocketed the knife in my coat, in the same place that carried the two weapons of the technological variety, then I turned and left the viewing deck. The urge to get out of this building quickly powered my legs and my feet. I wanted to get away as fast as I could, wanted to think more about what Trader’s message meant, other than its more obvious intent, which was to show me his whereabouts.

  Or to set a trap? Leave a warning?

  The knife bounced with each step.

  I tried to ignore it.

  The pounding in my heart urged me forward. Maybe it made me a little reckless. Or maybe it was the presence of the knife that pushed me on to a second destination, one I’d thought about since I woke this morning but didn’t believe I would muster the courage required to actually go to. I’d sworn off knives, yet this one wanted to haunt me, wanted to draw me on to places where I shouldn’t be.

  Or maybe, just maybe, possessing it made me feel safe.

  Like there was an arsenal in my pocket.

  23

  Skylar

  a feeling of flight

  THE BICYCLE WAS where I left it.

  I wheeled it out of the lobby and started on my way, trying not to think too hard about what I was doing, or about the map crumpled in my pocket and the fact that I was riding in the opposite direction it told me to go.

  The sun was high. It warmed the cold world just enough to make it bearable to endure the ride out of the city. My destination was far, at least two hours’ worth of legs pumping, at times hard enough to push the bicycle up a steep hill. I did it knowing that once I crested the top I’d feel the relief of flying down the other side. It wasn’t long before my body thawed with the exertion, the muscles in my legs burning. As the ocean came up on my left I slowed, though not because I was tired. I mean, I was tired. But something else held me back, as though a long tail of heavy rocks bumped and skidded behind me as I went.

  The bicycle careened down the last sloping curve, and now I did nothing to control its speed. I was nearly at my destination. There was no point in slowing things further.

  The cottage came into view.

  My heart lurched so hard I thought I might go tumbling over the handlebars.

  I hit the brakes and hopped to the ground. I walked the bike the rest of the way, the snow rising up to my knees on either side of the road. Single lines of tire tracks blackened it in places. Motorcycle tracks. A giant wave seemed to take me up and hurl me forward, propelling my feet. The ocean gurgled and shushed alongside me, drowning out the sound of my footsteps.

  I came up toward the top of the hill and as I did, I saw him.

  Kit was standing there next to one of the sprawling trees in the yard surrounding the cottage, the one that stood in front of the little house, between it and the view of the sea. He was slumped against the bare bark of the trunk with hi
s whole body, leg, hip, arm, shoulder, like all the hope had gone out of him. Kit looked exactly the same, but he was also a different person. The jacket he wore when riding his motorcycle dangled from one hand, nearly scuffing the frozen ground, and the collar of his shirt flapped in the wind. There was no scarf around his neck, though he seemed oblivious to the cold. He stared out at the water, but I could tell he saw nothing. He was lost in his head.

  He didn’t see me coming.

  As I continued toward him, a million different impulses fired through me. Take the jacket from his hand and place it around his shoulders. Return the scarf I wore to its rightful place around his neck. Do something, anything, to restore the life to those eyes that I once thought were vacant, yet now knew were the opposite, or could be when something brought the real Kit to the surface from the deep place where he kept himself hidden. I wanted to lead him inside the house, place him in front of the stove, and stuff it with wood that would burn through the cold he must feel in his limbs.

  All of these impulses, every one of them, were protective.

  It was strange how much I wanted to protect him, a boy I knew was strong and could be ruthless. But it’s what I felt as I closed the remaining distance between us.

  This is Kit, the boy abandoned.

  That was the version of him I was seeing.

  I was nearly to the tree when he realized someone was there, and he turned, shifted a little, slowly. It was only when he recognized me that his face changed.

  “Skylar?” he said, the last syllable lilting upward like he thought I might be an illusion that would disappear into the wintry air.

  I wanted to smile, to make a joke, tried to think of a line that might provoke that wry curl along the side of Kit’s mouth. I wanted to act like this was no big deal, my return. But now that I was here, facing Kit, the moment seemed to call for something else.

  I took another step closer. “Hello, Kit,” I said.

  Everything about him changed right then, at the sound of my voice. The Kit I knew came roaring back to life. His eyes brightened, his muscles found their own strength, pushing the tree away, his hands twitching at his sides, like they were seeking something. I thought of the birds in flight on one shoulder and the moon and stars on the other and I could imagine them bursting with color.

  A smile rushed to his face. “You came back.”

  I smiled, too.

  What happened next happened fast.

  Kit closed the rest of the distance between us. He pulled me into a hug and held me there, his body warm, his arms around me, strong and steady but fragile, too, because they were real and they were human and they were vulnerable. For the first time I felt his heart next to mine, beating, fluttering, so alive I couldn’t help remembering that real hearts don’t beat forever. The thought was terrifying.

  He was trembling, with the cold, with something.

  What was it Kit had said, while the blizzard held us in its icy grip?

  A life without risk is a life without meaning.

  Eventually we went inside.

  I took off my coat and hung it up on a hook.

  The cottage seemed different somehow.

  Utterly the same, but also changed.

  I ran my hand over the back of the old couch and heard the creak of the floorboards underneath my feet. The neatly folded blanket was sitting there, as always, just like the books on the shelf in the corner. Kit threw some logs into the belly of the iron stove and soon there came the spiced scent of wood burning.

  Neither one of us said anything else.

  Maybe the circumstances of my visit had altered things. I’d only just said good-bye to Kit two days ago, but here I was again already and this time of my own volition. Today I wasn’t a prisoner or a thing to be bartered. I knew my arrival would make a statement, but I hadn’t quite prepared for the welcome Kit might give me. Now that I was with him, I felt like I was hurtling toward the edge of a cliff.

  “I can’t stay long,” I said, trying to stop myself from going over.

  Kit was pouring coffee. He handed me the cup, then he sat down in one of the two chairs next to the stove. They were in the exact same position as we’d left them after my last night at the cottage. I sat in the other one. The coffee was hot and it warmed my hands.

  A smile still played at his lips.

  “Why are you smiling?” I asked.

  “You came back,” he said again.

  I tried to laugh, like this was no big deal. “I thought we’d already settled that.” Kit mumbled something. He stared down into his mug. “What?”

  He raised his eyes to mine. They held so many things, but fear was the dominant one among them. “I missed you.”

  I gulped some coffee, felt the burn of it going down my throat. “You left me. You could’ve stayed.”

  Kit shook his head. “No. Not with him there.”

  “Who? Rain?” I asked, even though I already knew it was Rain he meant.

  He nodded.

  “What is it you have against him?”

  He shrugged, then winced. His shoulder still hurt. “I just don’t trust him.”

  I waited for Kit to say more, but when he didn’t, I spoke. “Turns out I couldn’t stay there either,” I told him, pausing, trying to think what I wanted to say next. “I’m not sure where I belong in this world anymore. Or who I belong with,” I added in a whisper.

  Kit studied me. His lips parted, and closed again. Then he said, “You could stay here.”

  “No,” I replied immediately. Too quickly. “I have somewhere I can be. For now.”

  Kit’s eyes flickered away. He set his mug on the stove and got up. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” I said, glad for the change in subject.

  He took out a pot from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with water, his back to me.

  I wished I could see his face. I wondered if it showed disappointment.

  My heart pounded behind my rib cage, like a trapped thing that wanted out.

  My feelings for Rain still lingered, still peeked their head up to remind me they were holding on tight, that they wouldn’t just go away quietly. But as I sat by the stove watching Kit move around the kitchen, the delicate lines of birds and stars shifting in and out of view under the sleeve of his shirt, my heart wouldn’t settle, not anywhere and not even momentarily. It seemed to hover in the air, circling, flitting about, never landing.

  It was this that told me the truth about Kit, about what I felt for him.

  It’s when the heart won’t settle at all, when it refuses to alight altogether—whether out of fear or anticipation, excitement or the simple joy of flying—only then can it begin to fall and fall hard and fast into the vast and unknown territory that is love.

  “Would you give me a ride somewhere?” I asked before I could think better of it.

  Kit froze at my words, nodded, then continued cooking, his back still toward me. But I could sense it to the tips of my fingers and toes that if he turned around to face me the disappointment in his eyes would have vanished.

  24

  Rain

  darkest secret

  THE CORRIDORS WERE flecked with evening light, washed out and pale blue, like new-fallen snow. I came to a door at the far end of the mansion, nearly hidden in a dark alcove. This part of the house was neglected and no one ever bothered to visit. I knocked once hard, then three times lightly.

  That was the code.

  The door opened a crack. Two wide blue eyes blinked at me.

  No matter how many times I saw her, the resemblance was always startling. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m alone.”

  Skylar’s mother moved aside to let me through.

  The room was lit by a single lamp in the corner. The heavy drapes were pulled tight so if someone passed by outside they would never know anyone was in here. She motioned toward the round table next to the weak pool of light and the two of us sat down. A book lay open near her elbow. It was too dark to make out the title a
cross the spine. I’d brought her so many I couldn’t even guess.

  “How are you, Mariela?” I asked.

  She sighed. “The same. Fine.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  Mariela brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. “That’s not why you’re here.”

  I nearly had to turn away. Guilt sprouted every time I looked at her. “No.”

  “It’s not safe for anyone to know where I am.” She’d anticipated my question before I could ask it. “My daughter especially. You know this. We’ve discussed it many times.”

  I shook my head. If Skylar felt betrayed before, how would she feel when she found out that all this time her mother had been only a few feet away here at the mansion?

  “I can’t keep this a secret much longer,” I said. “It’s going to crush her.”

  Her eyes filled with sympathy. “I know you care about her and I know that lying to her isn’t easy.” She reached across the table and placed a hand on my forearm. “And I’m grateful you came back to get me the night of the fire. Skylar will be, too, when she finds out you saved my life. She’ll forgive you the secret once she understands why it was necessary.”

  “But will she forgive you?” I wondered aloud. “I’ve spent far more time with your grown-up daughter than you have at this point, so I’m confident when I say that you’re wrong.” Mariela winced at my words, but I kept going. “She doesn’t forgive easily. Not me and not you either.”

  Mariela pulled her hand back. She clasped them both in her lap. “Skylar’s sister doesn’t just want me found, she wants me dead. In the eyes of my eldest, I betrayed her first by choosing Skylar to plug in, and again by not siding with her cause and everything that goes with it. Skylar may not forgive easily, but Jude doesn’t forgive ever. And with what I know . . .” Mariela trailed off.

  “Jude would kill you without blinking,” I finished for her. “And you’re worth more alive to us and to Skylar than you’d ever be dead. I get that, and I appreciate your willingness to help. But I think Skylar needs to know that you’re here.”

  Mariela’s gaze cut across me. “I only help you if you keep Skylar out of it. I want her safe. That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”