I climb out of bed, shrug out of my nightgown, and find the correct boots. I wish I could reach underneath my mattress and take my sleeper pills. If ever I needed my health to be perfect, it is today, out there on the river, but I cannot risk Da’s noticing. I will have to wait until I get back. I wear the torn hat, the shirt, a pair of leggings, and a coat. I do not comb my hair; I have nobody to look decent for. This is how we both—Da and I—prefer my life, and on this one thing we can agree. I tuck the greasy sandwich inside my coat pocket, grab the flask. I wrap the giant scarf Gigi gave me for Christmas around my neck twice until my mouth is covered.
“I said I was sorry,” I say in a muffled voice.
Da doesn’t answer, doesn’t turn around, just marches toward the door and expects me to follow him. In the hallway he says, “I don’t want apologies. I want you to show me that you give a damn. About your grandmother. About your sister.”
“Of course I do,” I say, with as much irritation as I can muster. We don’t talk about the fact that sometimes when he can’t stand to see how sick Gigi is, he gets sad and moody and stays out until he knows she has gone to bed before skulking into the kitchen, looking for dinner.
We tiptoe down the stairs. The worst fishing days, rare as they are, are when Cecily wakes up and decides that she wants to come along. Even worse is when we make her return and she is furious, but we can bear those days better than when we’re halfway down the river and she’s bawling her eyes out because the fish we’ve caught are dying.
“Funny,” I say as we pass the kitchen. Da nods toward a couple of buckets in the corner, and I pick them up. “On the days you want to punish me, you think you’re a fisherman. Why can’t you be an orchardist on those days? Why can’t we go pick apples like normal people? I like picking apples.”
Aunt Imogen’s suitcases are still sitting by the door. They’ve been there since she arrived two days ago, fresh off her divorce, but I haven’t even seen her since that first night. That was what brought her here: the end of her marriage to a man Da specifically warned her against years ago. So he says, but don’t all parents warn their children, and are children ever expected to listen?
She goes drinking and sleeps late. Da, Gigi, Cecily, and I barely speak to her. Only Gigi tries. Mainly because of the suitcases. Da says there’s no use in investing time in someone who has no intention of staying. She comes, she goes, and she stays out of the way. Sometimes I hear her crying in her room at night.
Once I even knocked. It was what she would have done. But the crying stopped, and the door stayed locked.
She comes out now, as if I conjured her up, her hair sticking up in strange angles. “Oh. I thought I heard voices. What’s happening?”
Da doesn’t answer. I’m the one who says, “I’m being punished.” I hold up the buckets.
Aunt Imogen smiles. “I remember Da taking me on those trips. I don’t think I ever caught a single fish, though.” She looks from me to Da and then back again, and there is something hopeful about her voice when she says, “Do you want me to come with you? I can help. I think.”
Before I can say anything, Da snaps at her, “And will you bring your bottle of wine with you? Or perhaps you’ve found something stronger today. Your mother’s missing pills perhaps?”
She looks like he slapped her. She turns around, walks quickly back into her room. Her door slams shut. For me there has never been a more awkward moment. But Da acts like she was never here at all. I know he’s angry. Two years ago, Aunt Imogen married some man we’ve never met. Aside from one postcard, that’s the last we heard from her. No phone calls, nothing. When she was younger, she and Da used to be very close.
It’s hard to forget all the used-to-be’s.
“You used to love to fish,” he says, clearing his throat.
I turn away from the room Aunt Imogen disappeared into. “I was ten, Da. Now I’m lucky if I can get the smell out of my hair in a week, and you know how Pierre can be. You know how he won’t leave me alone.”
Da shrugs, shutting the door behind us. I think he is ignoring me, but then he speaks softly, his reluctant words not meant for my ears. “You’re still ten,” he mutters. “You’ll always be ten.”
“You’re not my father,” I say, which is the obligatory thing I always say to him when I am supposed to be mad. Supposed to be horrified at the prospect of having to spend the day with him. I don’t think I have actually had a day in my life I’ve not wanted to spend with him. Da jokes sometimes that I am a better boy than I ever was a girl; there are certainly no girls who live near us who think that spending the day fishing with their grandfathers might be the best thing that has happened to them in weeks.
“Of course I’m not, and no wonder,” Da says gruffly. “I would have done the whole damn thing better.”
But he kisses my cheek with twitchy lips, and I climb into the truck.
The orchards are full of trees, but I have managed to convince everyone that I am now too old to climb them. I did not break any habits when I came; instead I collected them. The way she walked and talked and laughed. It was like a filled box that I had to step into, that I had to mold myself to fit, but I could never bring myself to love the trees. The truth is I am no longer brave enough to climb them. I stand on ladders, which I tell myself is a different thing entirely. A ladder will not betray me, not without warning me first at least, and all our ladders are sturdy things. But a tree deceives you into thinking that it is on your side. Once in my dreams the old man said the same thing he always says: Look. We were standing at the top of a tree, and for a second we could see the whole world from there. But then my branch snapped. I died in that dream, I think. Even in sleep, I cannot dream a sturdy tree properly. Whenever I draw trees, I draw them with thick unnatural-looking trunks, with branches of steel, three times bound in wood. I must draw the ugliest trees in the world.
The river is not the same thing as a tree. You cannot blame a river for your fear because a river never lies to you. Already, even before you approach it, it is dark. It has no bottom. If you want it to, it will even do you the very worst favor of your life. I remember watching this image in the bunkers: of a girl and her grandparents and her mother swimming in the river, splashing one another with water. The girl is young, eight maybe, and she laughs as if the whole world belongs to her and that river. She laughs as if she is unafraid of it. That girl, I think, the original Lira, would never squeeze her hands together before entering the river. Would take no deep breaths, nor have to remind herself to be brave.
“It’s okay,” I whisper to myself as I climb onto the boat. And I have to keep saying “It’s okay, it’s okay” as the boat rocks and my knees knock together.
They say that if you conquer the ocean, you can surely conquer something as small as a river or a lake. But I am not nearly so optimistic.
Back at the cottages, the transfer was not the only time when we drowned. Sometimes the older kids would hold our heads in buckets of water, per Madame’s instructions, for however long it took for us to nearly die. “This is how tough it is going to get out there,” Madame would say when we were coughing on the ground, clutching our chests. “This is what the world is going to be like and how it will feel once you leave this place. And what do you know? What do you say?”
“Our Earth first,” we would chant. “Each other first. Soldiers first. Never them. Never them.”
“Good girls,” she would answer, nodding. And just when we found first breath, found hope: “Again.”
“Quick, Philip,” Pierre yells to his son when he spots us, “go help them.” As if we were incapable of rowing our own boat onto the water. As if because of old age and size, we were puny things with our fishing rods and buckets. Pierre, who I am convinced never bathes, raises a hand and waves at my grandfather, and they exchange pleasantries.
I pretend not to notice either of them. Pretend that the boat, which is really nothing more than a dinghy, is taking all of my attention. Da’s teeth glisten in
the early light, and he speaks without losing his falsely enthusiastic smile. “Smile, Lirael,” he says. “They always catch more fish than us.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter whether I smile or not. Look at this.” I wear my most discouraging face, yet Philip wades into the water, climbs aboard our boat.
He shakes Da’s hand, as if they were meeting for the first time, as if they were speaking a secret language, and then smiles shyly at me. “Hi, Lirael. You decided to come today.”
I say darkly, “I wouldn’t exactly call it my decision,” and Da elbows me in the ribs. I think how much Gigi likes fish. “But I’m glad I did.”
This basically cements my fate for the rest of the morning.
“There’s looters down your way this year, sleeping in the orchards,” Philip says. “Everyone’s been complaining about missing things. You and Cecily should be careful about . . .” He sees the look on my face, and his words trail off. He laughs. “What am I saying? They’re the ones who should be afraid.” He wiggles a single eyebrow at me. “So, Lirael, which poor sod have you beaten black and blue most recently? Or have you been good since that school fight with Michael Stanton?”
“We don’t talk about that,” I say quickly, but it’s too late. Da has already perked up.
“I would like to talk about that,” he says.
“That’s probably why we don’t talk about it,” Philip says, laughing. “Anyway, she seems pretty reformed now. Hasn’t had a bad incident in months.”
I laugh, too, dip my hand into the water and toss a handful at him, and Da gives me his look of approval. Anything for more fish.
“Fourteen,” I say, staring down into the water. This is a guessing game we play.
Philip cocks his head to the side like he’s thinking about it.
“Thirty-three,” he says finally. “A little ambition never killed anybody.”
I raise a brow at him. “Your greatest ambition is to catch thirty-three fish today? Really?”
He laughs. “At least I’ll never go hungry.”
To his credit, Philip does not look like his father. His clothes are cleaner, his hair less wild, and he certainly has more teeth in his mouth than Pierre. But they have the same objective, and their objective does not interest me. In fact, now that I am being homeschooled and it is nearing the end of summer, I do not know why Philip and I have to spend any more time together. He is supposed to be to Lirael what the kids from the cottages were to me. Somewhere in the world there are old childhood memories of a Philip and a Lirael, running through the orchards together, fishing together. But I look at him and never once see a boy whose head has been held underneath water, who has been beaten until he cannot speak—this not from Madame, but just because Madame was away and the older kids felt like it. The ones assigned to look after us in the bunkers, who didn’t have patience. They knew that our trackers would send alerts if something truly terrible happened to us, but no one had to know that we’d been kicked in the shin, punched in the stomach; that was our life, and from that one small simple thing, this Philip can never truly know me. Never understand me. What could we possibly have to talk about?
And this is not his fault.
She cared about him. I cannot. If this continues much longer, if I have to marry this boy one day, he will probably be the husband I pretend to smile at, pretend to want to kiss. That life is a good ten years away, I hope, but that does not keep me from wanting to yell, “Go away.” He deserves better, but to tell him so would be to break protocol. I am not allowed to break protocol. I am not allowed to set him free.
Da and Philip switch boats, with Da going to sit next to Pierre. Even from our boat I can tell that he is not happy when Pierre wants to talk about the other Earth instead of fishing. Pierre says that when the Silence first started, he went out and bought as many guns as he could find. Filled his basement with them. “Gotta protect my family, you know? I said, ‘Let those bastards come and see what we are made of.’”
I do not catch Da’s response, but I see the way he flinches. My grandfather is the kind of man who wants to believe only in things he can see. The idea that the war has already arrived, that it is right on his doorstep, would be incomprehensible to him. Worst of all, any interactions he might restart with his alternate once communication is reestablished will only remind him that Gigi is sick. And if Gigi is perfectly healthy on the other Earth, then he would rather not know it.
We haven’t talked about what the end of the Silence could mean for our family, but I am sure that if there were an opt-out plan, Da would never speak to his alternate again.
Even Cecily isn’t all that interested in meeting her alternate.
“That is exactly why your family was chosen,” my handler, Miss Odette, told me when we met. “Your grandfather has no interest in starting any trouble. It is the perfect place for a sleeper to hide.”
I wonder. If Da were a little more like Pierre, obsessing over the other Earth and stashing dozens of guns in some basement, would I even be here?
We row past a man in a small boat. He is wearing a suit. Looks too serious to be a fisherman. My immediate thought is that he is a sleeper, and he is here for me. Perhaps it is time, for Da, for Cecily and Gigi, and Philip. Am I supposed to kill them now? But we row right by him, and he says nothing, barely even looks at me.
I have to remind myself: I am a Safe.
They trust me.
I am so tired of forgetting.
They have not told me what will happen next. It could be anything. It could be today or tomorrow that the war begins.
I have to be ready.
The water rocks the boat ever so gently to remind us that it was here all along. That it is doing us a favor by leaving us where we are, that it is bigger and more powerful than we can imagine. It is nearly noon when Da and I go home, and he’s in a good mood. Philip caught nearly all our fish and convinced his father to give us even more. Da makes up a song as we go, truck bumping down the road, and by the time we reach home I am singing along. Cecily greets us at the door with a look of fury in her brown eyes and pummels her fists into my thighs until Da promises her a fishing day of her own, soon. Gigi sits by the window, knitting a sweater she keeps saying she has to finish, a small smile on her soft face despite the pain.
I watch them. I watch us. And I do not once think, One day you all are going to die. And I do not think, Soon. No. And I definitely do not think, Because you’re not my real family at all.
When I have a mission to complete at night, I drug them, especially Da. Nothing powerful, just enough to make them think they are sleeping soundly through the night on their own. On those nights I ride my bicycle back to the city. I deliver names, deliver weapons whose use does not concern me. How the man in the flower shop comes upon them, I do not know. I suspect he does not know either. He is only another piece in a very large puzzle. He plays his part.
Look, the old man from my dreams says, sitting beside my bed now. And in my sleep I see the memory of a tree, of four children standing at the very top of it. It’s me, Alex, Gray, and Edith, laughing. The birds swoop down over our heads in a dramatic dance. Madame yells at us from the bottom of the tree in a fury, in a panic. “The trees are meant to hide us,” she shouts. “You foolish children, come down at once,” but our laughter drowns her out. We hold hands, the four of us, best friends. We promise never to let go.
This is your last good moment.
And I agree.
We have those eyes. Those eyes that would disappear the first time we fell.
Chapter 19
Is it today?
Are they going to die today?
Am I going to kill them today?
Fall asleep and wake to the same questions. Always the same questions.
And the same answer: I am ready.
Some nights when I sneak into the city for a mission, I am afraid that I will not make it back. Since the Silence ended, our missions have become more dangerous. The people of this wor
ld have let their guard down, and that is exactly what we wanted, but I am also summoned to the flower shop more often than before. “This is our opportunity,” Miss Odette told me. “To erase as many threats to our cause as possible. You may be needed for more missions than you were before. Be ready.”
Some jobs require a different type of look. A wig or a hat, a different set of clothes. Some jobs require an entire team of us. On those days the flower shop man will give me the address of an empty office building, and when I reach it, other people will be waiting for me. There will be a costume to wear, and I will have a part to play. Sometimes I am the only young one there; sometimes there are no adults at all. Today a mix of us are carrying out the plan. A city official must be killed, and it must be made to look as though he has had a heart attack. No questions, no answers.
Normally these jobs are quick. We never introduce ourselves; we get right to work. And when it is finished, we disappear as if we never met.
There are five of us. A college kid, in his early twenties, who still wears braces and a pair of round glasses. An older man with a greasy-looking ponytail, and a woman who looks to be in her forties. Those two come from a time just before they started training children like me. The rules are different for them, the ones who came before us, who came before our world realized just how ruthless sleepers had to be. There is a girl no older than thirteen, who is supposedly the woman’s sleeper daughter. And me. We’re such an odd bunch that under any other circumstances it would be funny. But I can sense the fissures in our team right from the moment we meet, and I know enough to worry. Our best-case scenario, we have been told, is to catch the man while he is out on his evening jog. The young girl is supposed to act as a distraction, while her mother injects the syringe that I brought. As the rest of us get ready, the man unpacks his sniper rifle, which he will set up in case things go badly for some reason, in case we need to be protected. He assures the rest of us that he is a very good shot, a comment that is rebutted by the woman underneath her breath. The college boy and I exchange a look.
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