Unchosen

by Katharyn Blair

  Harlow stops, taking a deep breath before locking onto my gaze.

  “It’s like they’re looking for something.”

  I step back, shaking my head at the thought. “They’re looking for Vanessa. I told you, they want the Chosen One. I heard them.”

  “They could be mobilizing for any number of reasons. They could be planning an attack,” Harlow says, her voice quiet and even, like she’s trying to convince herself.

  “Or it could be both. She’s the only one who can end the curse. They’d want to get her out of the way before attacking.” I look up at my older sister. “We have to go to the Torch.”

  Harlow’s eyes widen, and she’s quiet for a second, like she’s waiting for the punch line. When one doesn’t come, she scoffs. “What? No.”

  My shoulders stiffen at her easy dismissal. “What other choice do we have?”

  Harlow steps closer. “Any other choice that doesn’t involve putting Vanessa’s life on the line. All we have is the ravings of an asshole on a tape. She has night terrors—that’s it. I’ll need more than that to risk putting a target on Vanessa’s back.”

  I don’t back up, even though I know that’s what she’s expecting me to do. We’ve had this conversation before, and it always ends up in this place—we can’t leave, because it’s dangerous. We don’t even know if we’d survive the journey to the Torch. Even if we did, we don’t know if they’ll believe us and let us in. We don’t know what they’ll do to Vanessa if they do believe us. What if they believe that killing her will solve this? What if they decide to put her in harm’s way? Harlow and I know the truth about this—there’s no un-telling that secret, once it’s out.

  So we can’t let it get out.

  “This is the safest bet,” Harlow says, gesturing around us. “We are the only ones who are going to protect her. Unless you pull some stupid shit again like you did today.”

  The black around her eyes is smudged, making her blue eyes stand out even more. For a second, I thought we were in this together—that she was trusting me with a secret. But it’s just like it’s always been. I step back. “You,” I say, turning away and heading back to the house.

  I hear Harlow’s footsteps behind me. “What the hell does that mean?”

  I whip around. “You said we are the only ones who can protect her, but you really mean you, right?”

  “What the hell is this about?” she whispers.

  I never told her. I never explained to Harlow what had broken in me the day I found her and Dean pressed up against the wall of the bathroom at the public pool.

  “I just wanted to help,” I choke out.

  She presses her lips together, and I know she doesn’t know what to say to that. That hesitation, that thought that she didn’t trust herself to say what she was really thinking, was worse than her anger.

  “Keep your pity,” I spit.

  “You don’t want my pity? Fine.” She shifts her feet. “If you ever put the man I love in danger again, then I won’t stop the Council when they want to have me beat the shit out of you in the square as punishment. Do you understand?”

  Her breath washes over my face, the bite of her words stinging in every way she intended. I make myself meet her eyes. She shoves something into my hands, and I look down. I feel the familiar edges. It’s the headdress, wrapped in an old T-shirt.

  “I understand, Commander,” I say, my voice flat.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon in the garden, refusing to take the gloves Marjorie offered me as I pull up weeds. It’s almost harvest time, but the plants are brittle and bare. I yank weed after weed, loving the slow throb of the sunlight on the back of my neck as my skin burns. My fingers blister, but I don’t stop. Malcolm walks by. I glance at his worn hiking boots as they pause just beyond the perimeter, and then I toss a handful of weeds before him as I look up at him. He surveys the sad state of the dry patch, taking a deep breath before meeting my eyes. I glare back, not saying a word as his eyes fall to my bleeding hands, then to the empty basket beside me.

  It’s late in the day by the time I walk back to the house. It doesn’t look any different than when my grandma was alive. The same plants sit in windowsills. The wind chimes still sound the same when the wind whispers through them.

  For a while, we lived in this house, the four of us. There was hope then. That it could be like it was before, at least a little bit. That we could scratch a strange little home out of the scraps the Crimson left us. That maybe Vanessa wasn’t as marked as the new scar on her rib seemed to make her.

  That hope disappeared as the dreams got worse, going from soft whispers to strange words she’d spit out like broken teeth in the middle of the night, and she told us about Grandma’s death before it happened. There’s a door in her heart that’s closed. Nine and thirteen.

  And the next week, our grandmother died from a heart attack at 9:13 in the morning. She grabbed her left arm and fell over in this tomato patch.

  As Harlow and I dug the grave in silence, handkerchiefs over our mouths, we knew.

  Since then, walking back to my grandmother’s house doesn’t feel like coming home. I keep waiting for it to get easier, because people say it does. Maybe it did, before the end of the world. But I don’t know how grief is supposed to work now.

  A voice stops me as I reach the top of the porch.

  “You need to disinfect those cuts,” Malcolm says, perched in my grandma’s favorite porch chair.

  “If you came here to lecture me,” I start, “Harlow already beat you to it.”

  Malcolm stands, groaning as he puts his hands on his back. He acts like an old man, but we all know better. I’ve seen him lift sandbags during rainstorms. He’s seventy-four pushing thirty.

  “I don’t need people being nice to me,” I add, my voice just louder than a whisper. Malcolm doesn’t say anything, and I know he’s waiting for an explanation. I exhale sharply as I walk down and sit next to him. “Someone being kind is just . . . pity now. Maybe it wasn’t before. But whenever someone is nice to me, it just means they think I’m too weak to handle things on my own.”

  Malcolm pulls a small vial from his back pocket and pops the lid. The smell of isopropyl alcohol wafts up, and he motions for me to give him my hand. I sigh, knowing better than to argue. His rough fingers find my wrist.

  “I disagree with your entire premise. Start to finish—terrible.” Malcolm used to teach college English, and I often forget until he says something like that. “Kindness, in this world, is the only thing that shows that we’re worth the survival we’re fighting for. You should accept it as the precious and rare thing that it is. We can’t save humanity if we lose ours.”

  “Okay, professor. I’m wrong. I recant, blah blah blahhooooowww!” Malcolm squirts some alcohol over my cuts, and the sting rips up my arm. I glare at him, knowing he’s enjoying it at least a little. “You did that on purpose,” I whine.

  A smile curls up his lips, moving the white hairs of his beard. “I did.”

  “I fucked up,” I breathe.

  “Language,” he growls.

  I lower my hands. “I should have known, Malcolm. I’m not Harlow. What the hell was I thinking?”

  Malcolm reaches over and, with gentle but firm fingers, finds my chin and turns my head to face him.

  “Language.” He doesn’t let go. “No. You’re not Harlow. You’re not Vanessa. I’ve watched you all for years, Charlotte. You look up and see Harlow and look back and see Vanessa and then look down at yourself and wonder what good you are.”

  I swallow the tightness in my throat and make myself meet his brown eyes.

  “You are Charlotte Holloway. And that means something.”

  “Well. If you have a working thesis about what that ‘something’ could be, I’d love to hear it, Doctor,” I joke.

  He lowers his hand. “Nope. You get to do all that work yourself, love.” Malcolm pushes himself off his knees as he stands, letting out another exaggerated groan. “I’m getting too o
ld for pep talks. So get your shit together.”

  “Language,” I shoot back. He leans down and kisses the top of my head before ambling back toward the street.

  The house smells the same—a hint of bacon and dryer sheets, even though the dryer hasn’t worked in months, and we haven’t had bacon since the Crimson took over and we worked to build the perimeter around what is now the Palisade.

  But it’s like the walls are holding their breath, waiting for a return that will never happen.

  My grandma’s chair sits in the corner. No one has sat in it since she died. Her purse, still full of coupons and Tic Tacs, hangs on the hook by the door.

  I walk into the back room I share with Vanessa, the one we always shared when we came to visit. The bedspread is a strange rust-orange cowboy print, and there are collectible plates with different Old West scenes mounted along the wall.

  We talked about changing it up when we first made the Palisade. My grandma was fine with us making it our own. But then she died, and the idea of boxing her things up was just too much.

  I toss the headdress onto the bed as I slink to the floor, exhaustion weighing heavy on my bones as I peel the T-shirt back and stare at the gold. I can’t believe just this morning I was talking Dean into going with me to get it. He agreed because he’s Dean, and he knew it was important to me. We risked our lives for this thing—more than we’ve risked our lives for anything up until this point.

  The storm gathers outside as I reach under the mattress and pull out the notebook I keep tucked deep beneath it. I flip it open, tearing past the strange drawings and words etched in the margins.

  I don’t know when exactly I started writing down the things Vanessa said in the middle of the night. It was after the night of the blood moon, but before my grandma died. I realized that Vanessa didn’t remember the things she said or the shapes she drew out with her finger on the wall. She’d sit up, have what Harlow now calls an “episode,” and then fall back asleep like nothing happened. I’d ask her about it in the morning, but she’d have no recollection.

  I started keeping a record, thinking it would eventually make sense—maybe she was telling us something that could help.

  The words blur as I flip through the pages.

  Find him on the dark blue, 3A, the one with the teeth.

  She said that three times, two weeks ago.

  Then, she stood up and ran her finger over the wall over and over, her eyes still closed. I sat back and watched, sketching out the shape as best I could.

  The way out, she said, hitting a fist to the wall twice before crawling back up to her pillow.

  I turn the pages, running my fingers over the grooves the pen left in the paper.

  His love pulls his loose threads. Loose threads loosely stitched. You’ll see it before she does.

  Glimpse to the water and you’ll see fire.

  Then, a week ago, she said something else.

  Bordeaux. Bordeaux in the box. See.

  Over and over. I woke, grabbed the notebook, and wrote it down. The next morning, as I helped Sergei wash the canned green beans, I kept thinking about it.

  I’d heard that name before. It bothered me until lunchtime, when I remembered that I’d seen it in the museum—the headdress was nicknamed the Bordeaux. Rumor was that it had belonged to Anne. And I knew where it was.

  It was the first thing Vanessa said that might mean something for the Curse—a riddle I felt I had solved. For a couple of days, I fought the rising hope that built in my chest—maybe there’s an answer.

  My fingers find the page with the words etched on it: Bordeaux. Bordeaux in the box.

  I reach back and grab the headdress, bringing it into my lap. The soft gold shimmers in the low light from the window, and I lift it, angling it so I can look into the rubies. The dark red stares back, flat and lifeless. I turn it in my hands, running my fingers over the edges. I’m looking for words. Or numbers. Coordinates. A map. Something. Anything.

  But it’s just a headdress.

  I don’t realize how big the hope in my chest has grown until it crashes down into my lungs, taking all of my breath with it.

  It was for nothing. That whole mission—that risk—was for nothing.

  I drop the headdress, letting it clatter to the carpet with a dull thud as I gather my knees to my chest.

  Your faith will save us all, Madame Menagerie had said.

  I’d written it off, but maybe part of me hoped it was true at the time. That I’d find some great reason for all of this. Some point.

  I lie down on the floor, looking up at the cracking plaster on the ceiling.

  I don’t hope we’ll rebuild some kind, good world. I don’t think this is a tapestry that’s being woven—one I’ll understand once it’s done.

  I think the only point of all of this is to survive.

  Chapter 7

  THE NIGHT AIR BITES AT ME AS I WALK OUT, AND I wrap my sweater closer as I step quietly across the driveway to the logs that now ring the fire pit in a semicircle. Vanessa sits alone, staring into the flames. I sit next to her.

  She has dirt on her nose, and I know she probably went straight from her impromptu gym session to working in the garden. Vanessa doesn’t do well with sitting still.

  “You should get some dinner while it’s . . .” She thinks. “I won’t say edible. Available works better,” she says softly.

  I snort.

  “You okay?” I ask. She turns to me, her eyes finding mine. The light glitters in her brown eyes.

  “Promise me you won’t ever do that again, Charlotte,” she whispers. I don’t know how she knows. Harlow wouldn’t tell her.

  I take a breath, but Vanessa holds a hand out to stop me from explaining.

  “I don’t know what this is, inside me,” she starts, “but you all are risking your lives being around me enough as it is. I can’t have you trying to act on things I say. If something happened to you . . .”

  I pull her into a hug. She fights it for the briefest moment, then sags against me.

  “I hate this,” she whispers into my shirt.

  I hold her tight, resting my chin on her head. “I know.”

  “This wouldn’t happen if we just told the Torch,” she starts, and my arms go still around her. “Just tell them where I am. We won’t be able to end this if I’m hiding out here like a child.”

  I pull her back, keeping my grip on her shoulders as I give her a soft shake. “You are a child, Vanessa.”

  Dean walks up then, a plate in his hands. Vanessa stands.

  “I’m going to bed,” she says, turning. She stops, looking at me sadly. “No one is a child anymore, Charlotte.”

  Before I can say another word, she’s gone, walking toward the house.

  Dean doesn’t say anything as he sits next to me and hands me my plate. Two sad-looking Vienna sausages roll on the plate, bumping into a little scoop of garbanzo beans. We are running low on supplies, then. No one eats Vienna sausages on purpose.

  I shake my head, but he doesn’t take the plate back. “You missed dinner.”

  “I dodged a bullet,” I say, looking at the plate and back up to him. He snorts and sets the plate on the log next to him.

  It is quiet, the sound of the fire crackling mixing with the distant thunder that rolls over the ocean. I look out. The clouds over the water are light purple, churning and rolling over each other like smoke. But the air between the whitecapped water and the clouds is black, and seems to go on forever, like a mouth opening to the abyss.

  The water is unforgiving. Wild. Hungry.

  I turn to look into the flames, losing myself in the comfort of the heat and light.

  “You didn’t tell her,” I say finally.

  Dean rubs his hands together. “Tell her what?”

  I look at him. His blue eyes look green in the firelight, his jaw shadowed. Pity sucks when it comes from Harlow. But coming from Dean? It’s almost unbearable.

  “That I didn’t get into the fountain w
ith you. That the Vessels tracked my scent,” I say.

  “It was a mistake,” he says. He is throwing me an out. A way to pretend that the fear inside me hadn’t been strong enough to almost kill me. Kill us.

  “It wasn’t a mistake, and you know it. I froze, just like I always do.” I look back at the fire.

  “You watched your younger sister almost drown, Charlotte. That will mess anyone up. I don’t blame you one bit for being scared of water. Harlow understands that.”

  “It’s not scared,” I whisper, hoping the words are swallowed by flame. Dean reaches over and wraps his arm around my shoulder. It’s a kind move—a platonic one. Something he would do for a sister. Which is what I am to him. My heart twists in my chest. “Scared is an aversion. Scared is . . . I would rather not. This is something else. This almost got you killed, Dean.”

  He drops his arm slowly and turns to the fire, leaning his elbows on his knees.

  “You were the one in the clutches of the Vessel,” he says quietly. “Because of me. Because you thought you could save me.”

  I know he didn’t tell that part to Harlow, because there is no way that she would have lessened my sentence if she had known.

  Death before the willful Crimson.

  “Why did you do it?” he asks again.

  I think about lying for a moment. Just long enough to turn to look at Dean.

  The question crackles in the air between us, heavy as it rides the heat of the flames.

  My Dean, even if he doesn’t know it.

  Thoughts flutter through my mind like snow. I know if I catch one on my tongue, it will disappear. I can’t tell him that I love him. That I’ve loved him for years. I loved him when we fought on Halloween night when I was fourteen and he hurt my feelings by assuming I wanted to trick-or-treat when I asked to go to a party with him and Harlow. I loved him when I was fifteen and he punched out a guy who snapped Vanessa’s bra at the movie theater. I loved the sound of his laugh and the way he sang off-key in the car. I loved him the whole time he’d been falling in love with Harlow.

  I love him even though it feels like I am breathing splintered glass when he looks at me like he is looking at me now.