The Perfect Outcast

by Melissa O. Hansen

  The first time they cleaned the men’s bathroom, Rex held a cloth at arm’s length as he wiped the urinals down. His other hand he kept over his nose.

  Alina looked at him and rolled her eyes. “Rex, that’s not working. You have to scrub to get them clean, you know.”

  “Ughhh!” he wailed. “This bathroom stuff is the most revolting part of mortality. Men are especially disgusting creatures.”

  Rex claimed this dirty, unpleasant work brought on his first cold; for two days he stayed in bed and was miserable company. At first Alina told him to grit his teeth and toughen up, then tried to be more understanding after he hotly reminded her that she’d never been sick and didn’t know what it felt like. Viruses didn’t exist in Pria, as they had no hosts, so until she experienced it herself, she could keep quiet. True, she hadn’t been sick before, but she knew the sore throat wasn’t bothering him most. He was worried about Jade.

  Despite his illness, Alina envied him; immortal life was starting to drag. She missed sleeping. The night hours made her lonely and anxious, with nothing to do but worry. Though her body never tired, her mind needed a respite.

  One morning after a particularly hard night, she put off her chores and asked Eleanor where she could get something to read. She didn’t expect there to be discs for her panel, since she’d seen nothing similar in Carthem. But she needed something to occupy her mind while everyone slept.

  “Yes, dear,” Eleanor answered her. “You can walk to the library from here. Go out this front door, take a right, and it’s two blocks down on your left. You’ll see a sign in front, ‘Stormport Library.’”

  Alina thanked her and stepped outside into the fresh morning air, grateful to escape the hospital wing and smelly bathrooms.

  Children played across the street in the park, with dogs barking and running at their heels. The small restaurants and clothing shops along the street fascinated her. After she and Rex wore the same dirty uniform for two days, Eleanor bought them clothes from the best store in town. Alina liked the fashions of Carthem; the moderate colors and styles differed from the flashy trends of Pria. She hoped her simple clothes would help her blend in, but every head turned and stared at her as she walked down the street.

  The library had faded brick walls and cracked, white columns. She skipped up the crumbled steps to the front door, and, ignoring the lingering eyes around her, walked to the front desk.

  “May I help you?” a bespectacled woman asked.

  “Yes, I’m interested in reading about Carthem’s history. Can you direct me?”

  “Certainly.”

  The woman led her to an aisle near the corner of the library, where a cozy set of armchairs faced a charred fireplace. She pointed to three shelves. “This is all we have, but I think you’ll find a good selection.”

  “Thank you,” Alina said, as she reached out and pulled one from the shelf. “What are they?”

  “Why, they’re books!”

  She opened it up, and a sweet musty smell reached her nose. The paper was yellowed, and the outside leather scratched and worn. The book seemed a perfect emblem of Carthem: rough, defaced, and comforting.

  “Can I take any of them with me? Just to borrow?”

  “Of course. Choose the ones you’d like to read and bring them to my desk.”

  “Thank you. And—one more question, please.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can people write freely here?”

  The librarian looked puzzled. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Can someone write what they think, and people can read it? Or are there restrictions?”

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “Yes, anyone can write and publish a book. But when it comes to Carthem’s history, we take the truth very seriously. Nothing is published without verification.”

  “Good. Thank you,” Alina said. The woman nodded and left.

  Alina was glad to hear this. In Pria all reading material, stored on info-discs, was strictly regulated, supposedly for the author’s protection. After all, he or she might say something offensive, and this could land the author—and others, if a feud erupted—into Carthem. ‘Unchecked words lead to unchecked wars’ was one of Sampson’s popular slogans.

  Alina tilted her head and scanned the titles. People, Policies, and Politics of Carthem; Life after Pria; Life as an Immortal: From the Mouth of an ex-Prian; The Man with the Iron Hand: Sampson and his Lies; and The Connection between Carthem and Pria.

  She took the two about Carthem, then plopped into a chair by the fireplace and picked up The Connection between Carthem and Pria.

  She flipped to the back cover and read about the author, Miles Cedarwood, who was one of the founders who helped Sampson establish Pria, and one of the first exiled. Three hundred years stretched between the first edition’s publication and the latest one. Camden’s endorsement on the back confirmed it as the most recent edition. She opened the book, crossed her legs and started to read.

  The first chapter introduced the discovery of a new substance before the Last Great War. Ageless serum, as the substance was later called, brought rapid advancements in technology, science, engineering, and medicine. One person was prominent in every area of this innovation: a young, brilliant, and charismatic scientist named Victor Sampson.

  Sampson’s innovations and inventions made him popular at a time when cultural, political, and economic divisions sparked discord across the territories of Carthem. Yet access to these advancements became limited through government interference and escalating costs. Sampson seemed apart from the conflict. His popularity established him as a spokesman, yet his neutrality as a scientist and innovator spared him any direct blame.

  The historians couldn’t say who initiated the first attack. The outlying territories appeared to target the central government. Retaliation was swift, and soon all of Carthem was embroiled in a major civil war, the Last Great War—the war Sampson referred to at every Day of Genesis. Key infrastructures were devastated, leaving the outer territories without critical necessities, and cutting off lines of communication and transportation. Ironically, all of Sampson’s hard-earned innovations—the things that initiated the unrest—were destroyed, along with the government.

  From the ashes, Sampson arose as a natural leader. The people were so broken, they embraced his leadership without question.

  Alina glanced at the clock, then hastily gathered the books and took them to the front desk. Jade’s visiting hours had begun, and as of yesterday, her condition was still uncertain.

  She hurried back to the hospital lobby and found Rex waiting in a robe and slippers, his hair ruffled and his nose chapped red.

  “You’re out of bed!” she exclaimed.

  “I’m too worried about Jade to rest. Where have you been?”

  “At the library. Look at these!” she dropped the books in his lap. “They’re called books! You’ve got to try them.”

  “Sounds great,” he said, waving her off. “Now, go see Jade!”

  She laughed at his gruffness and hurried to Jade’s room. Alina froze as she stepped into the open doorway.

  Jade was sitting up in bed, sipping juice through a straw. The needles were gone from her wrists, and her lips and cheeks flushed with color. She held the small cup and drank her juice with ease. Alina let out a cry and dashed to the side of her bed.

  She kissed Jade’s prickly, shaved head, then grasped her hand and knelt down. Jade wiped a tear from Alina’s cheek and laughed. “You cry so beautifully now,” she teased.

  “It’s because they’re happy tears,” Alina replied.

  They beamed at each other for a moment. Alina felt shy. She and Jade hadn’t been free to grow close before. Could the wall between them break down simply because of an operation?

  Jade’s eyes twinkled. “Tell me what’s happened since I passed out. Last I remember, I was on your back in the forest and Rex was complaining about food for about the thousandth time.”

  Alina burst into la
ughter, then went into an animated account of Rex’s back-and-forth complaints and raves about mortality. Jade squeezed her eyes shut as she laughed and clutched her sides.

  Her heart and tongue loosened, Alina unloaded into Jade’s willing ears everything about Stormport: Eleanor and Baylor and the news of Stan, the mundane tasks of earning their keep, and how worried she and Rex had been about her. She confessed her crush on Zaiden and the joys and annoyances of being immortal. When she demonstrated how the boys on the street gawked at her, Jade burst into such hearty laughter that the nurse dashed in and scolded Alina, then sent her off so Jade could rest.

  As Alina leaned in to hug her, Jade whispered in her ear. “We have a lot of years to catch up on. Someday I’ll make it up to you.”

  The tears came back to Alina’s eyes. “It’s been only an hour, and you already have.”

  As she walked out of the hospital wing, Jade’s laughter ringing in her ears, Alina realized she had talked the entire time and still knew little of her caretaker. But Jade seemed delighted, as if Alina had given her the time of her life.

  She wouldn’t let that happen next time. Alina wanted to soak in every detail of this woman who was as dear to her as a sister, or mother—or whatever they were called.

  Family, she remembered. Jade was family to her.

  Jade left the hospital wing the following day and moved into Alina’s room. They talked into the night until Jade could no longer keep her eyes open. Alina wished their conversation didn’t have to end, but Jade needed her rest.

  Alina considered their reversed places and how often Jade must have been lonely in Pria as Alina slept. Jade endured so many solitary nights; Alina could endure them too.

  She sat in the armchair and picked up The Connection between Carthem and Pria but didn’t open the book. Instead she reflected on her discussion with Jade, who had been forthright and honest—answering Alina’s questions without the hesitation of her earlier years. Alina respected her father’s wishes and didn’t ask about her birth but wanted to know how Jade felt about him.

  Jade smiled. “I knew you would ask that. I hope I’m ready to talk about him. It’s been so long.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready,” Alina rushed.

  “No. I’ve always wished I could tell you. There was so much I wanted to tell you. It tortured me to raise you so distantly. Horrible years I’m glad are over.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment before she began. “I met J’koby by accident. He was living—or hiding, I should say—with Camden.”

  “He lived with Camden?”

  “Yes. He’s his son.”

  “His what?”

  “His child. Born to him and his wife.”

  Alina’s mouth dropped. “Rex never told me that!”

  Jade raised her eyebrows and nodded. “I’m not surprised. He’s not a big fan of J’koby.”

  Alina suspected she knew why but asked anyway. “How come?”

  “Imagine being the number one person in your caretaker’s life, and then his long-lost son appears out of nowhere and moves into your home. J’koby is Camden’s own flesh and blood. Rex couldn’t compete with that.”

  “Oh—that is sad,” Alina murmured. And J’koby took Jade, too. No wonder Rex wasn’t a fan. “So how did you meet?”

  “Well, one day I went over—” She paused and her cheeks turned red.

  “What?” Alina asked.

  “I’m ashamed of my friends at the time. I had one who was interested in Camden. He was top of the ‘desirable list’ because he was so impossible to get. Only Sampson ranked higher than him.”

  “They wanted him because he was hard to get?”

  “Of course.” Jade cleared her throat. “So, this friend of mine—which I shouldn’t call a friend, because she wasn’t nice, and I shouldn’t have put up with her—”

  “It’s okay, Jade,” Alina cut in. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of.”

  Jade smiled. “Well, she was desperate to get Camden’s attention. He was one of the few real gentlemen in Pria, you see—so honest and respectful of women. He had a lot of female friends but never dated. He didn’t even flirt, and it drove them crazy. One day my friend told me she wanted to try something different. She reasoned so many women failed with him because they tried to be polite and courteous, like he was. Gentility never got them anywhere. She decided to be aggressive.”

  Alina broke in. “But there are plenty of aggressive women in Pria. Surely one had tried that before?”

  “Not like this,” Jade said. “She was planning to force herself on him. Make him—well, you know.”

  Alina’s jaw dropped. “But how?”

  “Let’s just say blackmail, in a twisted kind of way. She thought it would turn him on.” Jade shuddered. “Anyway, she asked me to get Rex out of the house so she could carry out her plan. Rex was about ten or eleven at the time. She told me to drop in and ask if I could take him to a Young Scientists’ function I was in charge of. Camden and I were good friends with mutual respect for each other. I knew he would be mortified if my friend carried out her plan. So, I decided to warn him instead.

  “I knocked on his door, and he invited me in but seemed nervous. He kept glancing up the stairs. I was hoping to speak to him privately, but Rex came running to see who was at the door. I told Camden I had something to tell him that wasn’t appropriate for Rex to hear, and he was about to take me outside when J’koby came bounding down the stairs, without his shirt on.” She giggled.

  “He hadn’t heard the doorbell and didn’t know I was there. Camden panicked. It was too late, though, we’d seen each other. J’koby, who should have fled, was glued to the spot, staring at me.”

  Alina leaned forward, smiling, and put her hands under her chin. “What did he say?”

  “Camden tried to make excuses for him, but they were pointless. I could tell right away he was different. He was handsome but obviously wasn’t immortal.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Well, he was half naked, and while his chest wasn’t unsightly, he wasn’t sculpted like an immortal. He had flaws; I could see them. And I liked that.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Camden tried to send me away, but J’koby stopped him. He whispered to Camden that since I’d seen him, they must convince me to stay quiet. Camden was uneasy, but for the most part, he trusted me. He knew I needed to be informed so I didn’t talk to others about the mysterious man living in his home. He introduced us to each other, then made me swear not to tell anyone, which I never did. J’koby insisted I come visit them often. He claimed he needed to keep tabs on me, but of course we both knew the real reason.

  “After several weeks of visits, and when I’d come to know not only J’koby but Camden and Rex very well, they felt they could fully trust me. So, they told me their secret.”

  “What was that?”

  “J’koby was a mortal from Carthem and Camden’s biological son—which was amusing, because J’koby looked older than his father. Camden thought he’d been killed with the others in his family. Sampson intended to kill him, but J’koby escaped and fled for his own safety. When things settled down after the war, and he returned to find Camden, J’koby learned his father had followed his enemy—Sampson—into an immortal world. So J’koby devoted his life to learning everything he could about immortality in hopes of finding his father. He lived in Carthem for over three hundred years before he entered Pria.”

  “But you said he was mortal!”

  Her eyes twinkled. “He was. In Pria, that is. He’s a brilliant man. He knows more about immortality than Sampson and can switch between the two.”

  Alina furrowed her brow. “But if he was mortal in Pria, why did they need me?”

  “I asked him that question, too, when he was planning your birth. He said a mortal must be born in Pria to have the power to collapse it. He discouraged my questions for my safety. I didn’t push it.”

  “I
see,” Alina said. “So, you two fell in love?”

  She smiled. “Yes. Perhaps I was foolish because I loved him partly because he was mortal. I didn’t trust immortals, and because he wasn’t one, I believed he was safe to love.”

  “Did he ever prove you wrong?” Alina whispered.

  Jade paused, tears forming in her eyes. “No. He lived up to all the good things I saw in him. But as you know, our story did not end happily. We spent two wonderful years together before he was caught and sent back to Carthem.” She looked down at her hands. “And now I will see him again. I hope he likes bald women.” She brushed a tear from her cheek and smiled.

  “Oh, your hair will grow fast. Or you can do a short, barbed hairdo.”

  “Yeah, I never liked those!” she laughed. Alina had more questions, but Jade looked so exhausted, Alina encouraged her to go to bed.

  Now she sat with the unopened book in her lap and thought of J’koby and Rex. Alina was fond of Rex and hoped one day, Jade would love him back. But the more she learned of J’koby, the more she cared for him. It was exciting to have a father, and if he and Jade loved each other, the three of them could be like a real family.

  But Rex was like a father to her, too, in his own way, and his devotion to Jade was solid and unwavering. She wisely mistrusted immortals but must be convinced of his loyalty by now.

  Jade slept soundly; the small rise and fall of her chest the only indication she was alive. Dark blood pooled into the veins of her hands and black fuzz covered her head, but despite her flaws, she was the most beautiful woman Alina had known. Maybe she, like Rex, was learning to look inside to find real beauty.

  Alina glanced at her own smooth hands and fingernails and ran them over her lean, shapely legs. She knew the power of her beauty by the hard gazes that followed her, but was she beautiful where it counted most? If mortality found her again, would she—and others—still find her remarkable?

  Earlier, she asked Jade how she dealt with the stares as an immortal. Jade’s clear answer surprised her.

  “They never stared at me in Pria. Unless someone is exceptionally unique, no one notices.”