Oh, she could feel them, feel them all. She could stretch out her hands and stroke the darkness and feel them in it, everywhere. Their sorrowful forgetting. Their great and terrible brokenheartedness. Their endless needful questioning. It moved her to a sorrow that was a kind of love. Like the love she’d felt for the Man, who in his care for her had told her to run and keep on running.
The Man. She remembered the fires and the light like an exploding sun in her eyes. She remembered his sadness and the feeling of the Man. But she could not hear him anymore. The Man, she thought, was gone.
There were others she did hear, in the dark. And she knew who these were, too.
I am Babcock.
I am Morrison.
I am Chávez.
I am Baffes-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echols-Lambright-Martínez-Reinhardt-Carter.
She thought of them as the Twelve, and the Twelve were everywhere, inside the world and behind the world and threaded into the darkness itself. The Twelve were the blood running below the skin of all things in the world at that time.
· · ·
All this, through the years and years. She remembered one day, the day of the field of bones, and another, the day of the bird and the not-talking. This was in a place with trees, so tall. There it was, just a small fluttering thing in the air before her face. Her feet were bare on the grass in the sunshine that she had learned to walk in. To and fro it moved on a blur of wings. She looked and looked. It seemed to her as if she had been beholding this small thing for many a day. She thought the word for what it was, but when she tried to say it, she realized she had forgotten how. Bird. The word was inside her but there was no door for it to come out of. Humming … bird. She thought of all the other words she knew and it was just the same. All the words, all locked away inside.
And one night in the moonlight and after much time had passed, she was lonesome and without a friend in the world for company and she thought: Come here.
They came. First one and then another and more and more.
Come to me.
They stepped from the shadows. They dropped from the sky above and the high places all around, and soon they were a company without number, as they had been in the barn, only more so. They crowded around her with their dreaming faces. She touched them, caressed them, and did not feel alone. She asked: Are we the all? For I have seen no one, no man or woman, in all the years and years. Is there no I but I? But as long as she asked, they had no answer for her, only the question, fierce and burning.
Go now, she thought, and closed her eyes; and when she opened them again she found she was alone.
That was how she learned to do it.
Then, through the seasons of nights and the years of nights, she came upon the place of the buried city, where in the paling light of dusk she saw the men on their horses. Six of them, atop six dark horses of great muscularity. The men had guns, like other men that she recalled, in the time after the man and his wife and the boy and then the woman; and she hid herself away in the shadows, waiting for night to fall. What she would do then she did not know, but then the forgetful ones came to her as they always did in the dark and although she told them not to, they descended upon the men swiftly and with a great commotion and in this fashion the men began to die and then did so, three of their number.
She moved to where the bodies lay, the men and also their horses who were dead with no blood in them as was the case with all things that had died in this manner. Three of the men were nowhere to be found but the soul of one man was still near, watching from some nameless place without the form of solid things as she bent to regard his face and the look written upon it. It was the same look she had seen upon the face of the man and his wife and the boy and then the woman. Fear, and pain, and the letting go. It came to her that the man’s name had been Willem. And the ones who had done it to Willem were sorry, so sorry, and she rose and said to them, It’s all right, go now and do not do this again if you can help it, though she knew that they could not. They could not help it because of the Twelve who filled their minds with their terrible dreams of blood and no answer to the question but this:
I am Babcock.
I am Morrison.
I am Chávez.
I am Baffes-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echols-Lambright-Martínez-Reinhardt-Carter.
I am Babcock.
Babcock.
Babcock.
She followed them across the sand, even though the light was a great brightness to her eyes and on some days she could not hide from it. She wrapped herself in a cloth she had found and on her face she had the glasses. The days were long, the sun in its arc cutting a swath in the sky above and plowing the earth below it with the long blade of its light. At night the desert grew still with only the sound of her moving across it and the beating of her heart and the dreaming world around.
Then it was a day when there were mountains once again. She never had found those men on their horses or where they had come from that some of their number should have died in the buried city before her eyes. The floor of the valley between the mountains was dotted with trees that turned with the wind, and that was where she came upon the building with the horses inside; and when she beheld them in their stillness and solitude she thought, Perhaps these are the horses I saw. The horses weren’t alive but they seemed so, and the look of them brought a peacefulness to her mind and a feeling of the Man and his cares for her that made her think she should stay in that place, that the time for running was ended. That this was the place where she had come to rest.
But now that time had ended, too. The men had returned at last on their horses and she had saved one of their company; she had covered his body with her own as her instincts had dictated in the moment and she’d told the dreaming ones to go, go now and do not kill this one; and for a while these urgings had worked upon them, but the other voice within their minds was strong and the hunger was strong also.
In her space in the dark and dust below the horses she thought of the one she had saved, hoping he was not dead, and listened for the sounds of the men and their horses and guns returning. And after a certain time of days, when she had detected no trace of them, she departed that place as she had departed all the others before it and stepped into the moonlit night of which she was a part, one and indivisible.
—Where are they? she asked the darkness. Where are the men on their horses that I should go to them and find them? For I have been alone through all the years and years, no I but I.
And a new voice came to her from the night sky, saying, Go into the moonlight, Amy.
—Where? Where should I go?
Bring them to me. The way will show you the way.
She would. She would do it. For she had been alone too long, no I but I, and she was filled then with a sorrow and a great desire for others of her kind, that she should be alone no longer.
Go into the moonlight and find the men that I should know them as I know you, Amy.
—Amy, she thought. Who is Amy?
And the voice said, You are.
V
GIRL FROM
NOWHERE
You who do not remember
Passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice.
—LOUISE GLÜCK,
“The Wild Iris”
TWENTY-FOUR
Log of the Watch
Summer 92
Day 51: No sign.
Day 52: No sign.
Day 53: No sign.
Day 54: No sign.
Day 55: No sign.
Day 56: No sign.
Day 57: Peter Jaxon stationed at FP 1 (M: Theo Jaxon). No sign.
Day 58: No sign.
Day 59: No sign.
Day 60: No sign.
During this period: 0 contacts. No souls killed or taken. Second Captain vacancy (T. Jaxon, deceased) referred to Sanjay Patal.
Respectfully
submitted to the Household,
S. C. Ramirez, First Captain
Dawn of the eighth morning: Peter’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the herd, coming down the trace.
He remembered thinking, some time after half-night: Just a few minutes. Just a few minutes off my feet, to gather my strength. But the moment he’d allowed himself to sit, bracing his back against the rampart, and rested his weary head upon his folded arms, sleep had taken him fast.
“Good, you’re up.”
Lish was standing above him. Peter rubbed his eyes and rose, accepting without comment the canteen of water she was handing him. His limbs felt heavy and slow, as if his bones had been replaced by tubes of sloshing liquid. He took a drink of tepid water and cast his gaze over the edge of the rampart. Beyond the fireline, a faint mist was rising slowly from the hills.
“How long was I out?”
She squared her shoulders toward him. “Forget it. You’d been up seven nights without a break. You had no business being out here as it was. Anybody who says different can take it up with me.”
Morning Bell sounded. Peter and Alicia watched in silence as the gates commenced to retract into their pockets. The herd, restless and ready to move, began to surge through the opening.
“Go home and sleep,” Alicia said, as the logging crews were preparing to leave. “You can worry about the Stone later.”
“I’m going to wait for him.”
She steadied her eyes on his face. “Peter. It’s been seven nights. Go home.”
They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps ascending the ladder. Hollis Wilson hoisted himself onto the catwalk and looked at the two of them, frowning.
“You standing down, Peter?”
“All yours,” Alicia answered. “We’re done here.”
“I said, I’m staying.”
The day shift was commencing. Two more Watchers clambered up the ladder, Gar Phillips and Vivian Chou. Gar was telling some kind of story, Vivian laughing along, but when they saw the three of them standing there, they abruptly fell silent and moved briskly down the catwalk.
“Listen,” Hollis said, “if you want to take this post, it’s okay with me. But I’m the OD, so I’ll have to tell Soo.”
“No, he’s not,” Alicia said. “I mean it, Peter. It’s not a request. Hollis won’t say it, but I will. Go home.”
The urge to protest rose within him. But as he opened his mouth to speak he was met with a blast of grief that stunned him into surrender. Alicia was right. It was over; Theo was gone. He should have felt relieved, but all he felt was exhausted—a bone weariness that ran so deep he felt as if he’d be dragging it for the rest of his life like a chain. It took nearly all of his strength just to lift his cross from the floor of the rampart.
“I’m sorry about your brother, Peter,” Hollis said. “I guess I can say that now since it’s been seven nights.”
“I appreciate that, Hollis.”
“I guess that makes you Household now, huh?”
Peter had barely considered this. He supposed he was. His cousins, Dana and Leigh, were both older, but Dana had taken a pass when Peter’s father had stepped down, and he doubted Leigh would be interested in the job now, with a baby to look after in the Sanctuary.
“I guess it does.”
“Well, um, congratulations?” Hollis gave an awkward shrug. “Funny to say it, but you know what I mean.”
He’d told no one about the girl, not even Alicia, who might have actually believed him.
The distance from the mall roof to the ground had been less than Peter had thought. He had been unable to detect, as Alicia could from below, how high the sand was piled against the base of the building—a tall, sloping dune that had absorbed the impact of his fall as he tumbled headlong down it. Still clutching the axe, he’d climbed onto Omega’s back behind Alicia; it wasn’t until they were clear on the other side of Banning, and could reasonably conclude that no pursuit was forthcoming, that he’d thought to wonder how they’d gotten away, and why the horses themselves were not dead.
Alicia and Caleb had fled the atrium through the kitchen of the restaurant. This connected through a series of hallways to a loading dock. The big bay doors were rusted tight, but one was open a crack, letting in a thin beam of sunlight. Using a length of pipe as a wedge, the two of them had managed to force it open wide enough to scramble through. They rolled out into sunlight to find themselves on the south side of the mall. That was when they spotted two of the horses, obliviously chewing on a stand of tall weeds. Alicia couldn’t believe their luck. She and Caleb were making a circuit around the building when she heard the crash of the door and saw Peter on the edge of the roof.
“Why didn’t you just go when you found the horses?” Peter asked her.
They had stopped on the power station road to water the animals, not far from the place where they had seen the viral in the trees, six days earlier. They had only what was in their canteens, but after they had each taken some, they poured what was left into their hands and let the horses lick it off. Peter’s bleeding elbow was wrapped in a bandage they’d cut from his jersey; the wound wasn’t deep but would probably need stitches.
“I don’t second-guess these things, Peter.” Alicia’s voice was sharp; he wondered if he’d offended her. “It seemed like the right thing to do, and it was.”
That was when he could have told them about the girl. And yet he’d hesitated, feeling the moment pass away. A young girl alone, and the thing she’d done under the carousel, covering him with her body; the look that passed between them, and the kiss on his cheek, and the suddenly slamming door. Maybe in the heat of the moment he had simply imagined all of it. He told them he’d found a stairwell and let it go at that.
They returned to a great commotion; they were four days overdue, on the verge of being declared lost. At the news of their return, a crowd had assembled at the gate. Leigh actually fainted before anyone could explain that Arlo was not dead, that he had stayed behind at the station. Peter didn’t have the heart to go find Mausami in the Sanctuary, to give her the news about Theo. In any case, someone would tell her. Michael was there, and Sara too; it was she who washed and stitched his elbow while he sat on a rock, wincing at the pain and feeling cheated that the trancelike numbness brought on by the loss of his brother did not also apply to having one’s skin sewn closed with a needle. She wrapped it in a proper bandage, hugged him quickly, and burst into tears. Then, as darkness fell, the crowd parted, making room for him to pass, and as Second Bell began to ring, Peter ascended the rampart, to stand the Mercy for his brother.
He left Alicia at the bottom of the ladder, promising that he’d go home and sleep. But home was the last place he wanted to go. Only a few of the unmarried men still used the barracks; the place was filthy and reeked as bad as the power station. But that would be where Peter lived from now on. He needed a few things from the house, that was all.
The morning sun was already warm on his shoulders when he arrived at the house, a five-room cabin facing the East Glade. It was the only home that Peter had ever known, since coming out of the Sanctuary; he and Theo had barely done more than sleep there since their mother’s death. They certainly hadn’t done much to keep the place tidy. It always bothered Peter what a mess it was—dishes piled in the sink, clothing on the floor, every surface tacky with grime—and yet he could never quite bring himself to do anything about this. Their mother had been nothing if not neat, and had kept the house well—the floors washed and rugs beaten, the hearth swept of ashes, the kitchen clear of debris. There were two bedrooms on the first floor, where he and Theo slept, and one, his parents’, tucked under the eaves on the second. Peter went to his room and quickly packed a rucksack with a few days’ worth of clothing; he’d look over Theo’s belongings later, deciding what to keep for himself before carting the rest to the Storehouse, where his brother’s clothes and shoes would be sorted and stowed, to await redistribution among the Colony at Share. It was Theo who
had seen to this chore after their mother’s death, knowing that Peter could not; one winter day, almost a year later, Peter had seen a woman—Gloria Patal—wearing a scarf he recognized. Gloria was in the market stalls, sorting jars of honey. The scarf, with its bit of fringe, was unmistakably his mother’s. Peter had been so disturbed he’d darted away, as if from the scene of some misdeed in which he was implicated.
He finished his packing and stepped into the main room of the house, a combined kitchen and living area under exposed beams. The stove hadn’t been lit in months; the woodpile out back was probably full of mice by now. Every surface in the room was coated in a sticky skin of dust. Like nobody lived there at all. Well, he thought, I guess they don’t.
A last impulse took him upstairs to his parents’ bedroom. The drawers of the small dresser were vacant, the sagging mattress stripped of bedding, the shelves in the old wardrobe barren except for a filigree of cobwebs that swayed in the shifting air when he opened the door. The small bedside table where his mother had kept a cup of water and her glasses—the one thing of hers Peter would have liked to keep, but couldn’t; a decent pair of glasses was worth a full share—was ringed with ghostly stains. Nobody had opened the windows in months; the atmosphere of the room felt trapped and ill-used, one more item that Peter had dishonored with his neglect. It was true: he felt like he’d failed them, failed them all.
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