by Jon McGoran
Then it was just Del and me.
We stood there for an awkward moment. Then he said, “Your room is this way.”
We walked around the bend and down the next hallway. He was quiet, the quietest he’d been since we got there.
“I appreciate you trying to help me, Jimi. And I would have let you know somehow. Eventually.” He stopped, opening the door to a bedroom.
I nodded, not sure I believed him. “I haven’t even told you half of what I’ve been through. The cops picked me up when you ran off that day. My mom freaked out, so now I’m living at Trudy’s.”
He grimaced. “Crazy Aunt Trudy?”
“She’s okay. But I’ve barely been there because I’ve been sneaking out searching for you.” Bits and pieces of all I’d been through the past few days ran through my mind, including my run-ins with Stan. I wanted to tell Del about it, but I knew it would only hurt him. Tears started spilling down my face, and I found I couldn’t speak. I was still so angry at him, but then he came over and put his arms around me, and for one moment, that was all I wanted.
He stroked my hair and when my tears subsided, he finally said, “I’m sorry.”
I pushed him away. “You should be sorry. My life has turned to crap. And while I’ve been out of my mind worrying, you’ve been . . . here.”
He put his hands on my shoulders. “Jimi, I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to hurt you, you know that, right?”
I nodded, too tired and too upset to explain to him how little difference there was between intending to hurt someone and letting them get hurt because you didn’t bother to think about them.
“Look, I have to go. There’s a big banquet tomorrow for the people who are paying for this place, and Jasper asked me to help with the preparations. Why don’t you get some rest and wash up, and I’ll come get you when we’re done?”
I nodded again, almost in a daze. I had come so far and worked so hard to find him; it seemed bizarre to be just going our separate ways because he had a meeting about a party. But it wasn’t like Del had been busting his butt trying to find me. I looked up, expecting him to say more, realizing he wasn’t going to. I decided that him getting out of my sight wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen just then. I went inside and turned to look back at him.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?” He said it with an oblivious smile.
I closed the door, wondering what the hell I was doing there, if I had misunderstood everything about the world. Wondering if I was the crazy one.
I’d have to think about that.
The room was small but nice. The bed beckoned, but I was too dirty to get in it. First, I took a bath.
I’d always been more of a shower person, but this was exquisite. I washed my gross hair and scrubbed my mud-caked arms and legs, then drained the tub and refilled it with clean, hot water, just to soak in. In no time, I drifted into a shallow sleep filled with vague dreams.
Someone I knew was holding me. His hands were large and comforting. I couldn’t tell if it was Del or Rex, or some combination of the two of them. The atmosphere was different. Then it dawned on me that I was different, too, and I realized with a jolt that I was a chimera. In my dream, I looked down at my body, but before any details could register, I awoke with a start, my face flushed and my skin tingling.
The water was lukewarm and someone was knocking at the door.
“Just a second,” I called. I stumbled out of the tub and raced to the mirror, checking to make sure I was all me, even as the reality of the dream faded away. I dried off with a big bath towel, then wrapped myself in it. There was no peephole in the door. “Who is it?” I asked, my hand on the knob.
“Tamil,” came the reply. Then, lower, “It’s Del.”
I pulled the towel tight and opened the door.
His eyes swept over me, a quick flicker that I almost didn’t notice. His once-brown irises were now flecked with gold, making the pupils seem somehow blacker than before.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
“Hey,” I said back.
“Jasper wants to talk to you,” he said. “When you’re ready, of course.”
“What does he want?” I felt like I was being called into the principal’s office, only it was a secret school that was surrounded by razor wire.
“It’s nothing, I’m sure. He probably just wants to make sure you’re doing okay.”
Jasper was creepy, and I dreaded the thought of meeting with him, but part of me liked the idea of getting a closer look. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
SIXTY-THREE
My clothes felt even dirtier as I put them back onto my clean body. I eyed the bed longingly, but only for a second. Then I opened the door.
Del was waiting in the hallway. “It’s this way,” he said, leading me down a side hallway with burgundy carpet, deep green walls, and dark wood doors.
“How long have you actually been here?” I asked. For someone who had been an outcast at school, he sure seemed to be fitting in.
“Just a couple days, really, and I was out of it the first day. But in a way, it feels like I was born here.”
I stared at the side of his head, wondering if he could even hear himself, but he seemed oblivious. We doubled back through the lobby and down a set of stairs to another hallway.
There were a hundred questions I wanted to ask, but before I got past that first one, Del stopped in front of a heavy wooden door and knocked.
A voice on the other side said, “Come in,” and Del opened the door for me.
Jasper was sitting behind a large desk, smiling broadly behind steepled fingers. The office was huge but not as luxurious as I expected. The desk was big. It had an old-fashioned corded phone, and the rest of it was covered with papers, as if he was using every square inch.
He gestured to a chair next to the desk. “Have a seat, Ms. Corcoran.” Then he looked up at Del. “Thanks, Tamil.”
Del backed out the door, flashing me a small, reassuring look.
“So, what do you think of Haven so far?” Jasper asked with a smile that did not extend to his eyes. I found myself looking into his WellPlant instead, as if I might have better luck trying to read something from it.
“Seems great,” I said.
He nodded, waiting, like he expected more, like it was a test and I hadn’t passed it yet. But I didn’t feel like giving him any more than that. I nodded back at him until he continued.
“It is,” he said. “It’s a wonderful place. There’s a lot of bad out there in the world. It’s gotten quite dangerous.” He looked at me. “Especially for young people. And chimeras, of course.”
From what I’d heard about the old days, kids weren’t much safer then. But he had a point about the chimeras, so I nodded again.
He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Genetic Heritage Act. It might be overturned; it might spread to other states. It might become federal law, or even part of the Constitution, like some people want. But right now, it is state law.” He shook his head. “Things have always been hard on chimera kids. But this is a whole new level.” He punctuated that last sentence by firmly patting the desk. “And that means it’s a dangerous world for those who try to protect them, too. There are people who don’t approve, who’d like to stop us. That’s why it’s so important that our location remains a secret. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Those people in Pitman have no idea what we’re doing here. We need to keep it that way.” He shook his head. “Ryan knew he wasn’t supposed to go back. I told him so myself. ‘If you want to help your friends,’ I said, ‘we can go and get them. Bring them to safety.’ But he snuck off on his own. And look what happened to him.” He leaned back in his chair, studying me. “You put us in an awkward spot, Ms. Corcoran.”
“How’s that?”
“Haven is for chimeras. We have a hard enough time taking care of them. We have strict rules that only chi
meras can stay here.”
“Okay.” I had no intention of staying there.
“But we also have rules against folks leaving. For security purposes. Surely you understand how important it is that our location remains a secret.”
I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. He was starting to freak me out. “Your secret is safe with me.”
He leaned forward, his eyes somehow both intense and blank. “I hope it is.” He stared at me like that for a moment, then leaned back again. “We’ve worked too hard, invested too much. We have too many chimeras to save to risk losing that.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about me.” I wondered what was happening here, what he was getting at. I was also wondering if the door behind me was locked, if I could get through it before Jasper could come around that desk to stop me. I found myself wondering if Del would help me once I did.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. I was getting ahead of myself. I wasn’t a prisoner or anything, not yet.
“How old are you, Ms. Corcoran?” Jasper asked, bringing me back.
I hesitated, and he said, “You are sixteen. You are a minor. That means you are here illegally, without a guardian. Many of our chimera guests are, too, but no one is looking for them. Frankly, they have been discarded. If not for us, they would have no one.” He smiled. “I imagine someone will be looking for you. So already, you put us at risk.”
He slid the phone across the desk toward me. “This line is secure and untraceable. I would like you to call your parents and tell them you’re safe. But you must not tell them where you are. Say you’re at a friend’s house, whatever you want, but you cannot tell them you are here. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “I live with my aunt.”
“Yes,” he said. “Del told me. In Perkins Park, if recall. So call your aunt and tell her you’ll be home tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if she’ll be home. She might be at work, or—”
“Then leave a message.” He wasn’t smiling anymore.
I picked up the phone and punched in Trudy’s number, hoping she wouldn’t pick up. She did.
“Hello?” she said, sounding tentative and scared.
“H-hi, Aunt Trudy.” I could hear the tremor in my voice, feel it spreading through my body. The sudden connection to Trudy—warm and caring, and yes, normal—it was like shining a light on the bizarreness of the last few days.
“Jimi, thank God! Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Where are you?”
I wanted to tell her that I was sitting in this crazy lodge in the middle of a fenced-in compound filled with disappeared chimeras who were being rescued to the Promised Land by some kindly old rich guy with the dead-eyed stare of a sociopath and a computer implant that seemed to have more personality than he did.
Instead, I looked at Jasper, who was staring at me. “I can’t say. I’ll be home tomorrow.”
“You’ll be home tomorrow? What do you mean? Where are you? Do you know how worried we’ve been? You going missing with all these riots going on? I’ve been worried sick. Your mother’s worried sick.”
I felt my insides twisting with guilt. “It’s all right. Tell her I’m okay.”
“Tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you.”
I almost did. Trudy could probably make it out there in an hour. I could be home in two. I’d be in massive trouble, but I’d be away from here, back at Trudy’s or even in my own home. Grounded for life, maybe, but so what? At this point, I just wanted to crawl into my own bed and stay there anyway.
“Jimi, are you there?” Trudy said. “Tell me where you are right now.”
As Jasper stared at me intently across the desk, I saw something pass through his eyes. It wasn’t an emotion—there was no sign of that. More like a calculation. I felt a chill.
“I have to go now, Aunt Trudy,” I said quietly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“What? No, Jimi, it’s not okay!” Her voice was getting screechy and loud. “Tell me right now. Where are you?”
“I love you, Aunt Trudy,” I told her. And I hung up.
SIXTY-FOUR
I felt a wave of sadness after I put down the phone, and regret, too, like I’d had this tenuous link to normalcy, a chance to return to it, and I had let it go. These feelings turned to fear when I realized Jasper was still staring at me.
There was a long moment before he spoke.
“I’m trusting you,” he said. “You realize how important this is. Your friends’ lives depend on it.”
Well, I’m not trusting you, I thought. What I said was, “I told you, I won’t tell anyone.” I tried to make it sound as convincing as possible.
“All right,” he said, after another brief pause. “For now you’re welcome to stay, enjoy the grounds, spend some time with your friends. Tomorrow we’ll send you home. We might be out in the middle of nowhere, but we’re not too far from the Levline in Carston. There’s a train every other hour on the hour. We’ll get you on the ten o’clock train. You’ll be home by noon and you’ll never say a word about what you saw here, or where we are, or what our plans are.”
I nodded.
It seemed as though we were done. Then he smiled again, all nice and charming, and leaned back in his chair. “So, Ms. Jimi Corcoran. It’s a rather interesting name for a young lady, ‘Jimi.’ Is it short for something? Jemma? Jemima maybe?”
I felt trapped in his office, trapped in the compound, trapped in a world that had gotten out of kilter. I wanted to get away from him, but it seemed like we had to have a friendly chat first so our meeting wasn’t all business.
“It’s a nickname. My real name is Dymphna,” I said.
The muscles in his face didn’t move, but in his eyes I saw a flicker of true emotion. It was so out of place I didn’t recognize it at first, but it looked vaguely like fear.
“Dymphna Corcoran?”
“I’m named after—” I was about to say after my aunt, but for some reason I decided not to. “An Irish saint.”
His head tilted as he stared at me, long enough that I was starting to feel even more uncomfortable—which I wouldn’t have thought possible. The phone rang and I jumped, but he kept on staring.
I cleared my throat. “Are we done?”
“Yes, we are,” he said absently, ignoring the phone as he came out from behind the desk and opened the door.
Del had been sitting in a chair in the hallway, but he shot to his feet when I came out. Jasper closed the door without another word, and a second later the phone finally stopped ringing.
“You okay?” Del asked, looking both concerned and relieved.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Why, what did you expect?”
“Nothing. What did Jasper say?”
“Just that I can’t stay, and how important it is that I don’t tell anyone where this place is.”
“So . . . when are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
I saw a familiar mixture of pain and vulnerability in his eyes—like the old Del. It looked out of place in his face now.
“I have more stuff I have to do for the sponsors’ banquet,” he said. “But I have some time right now. How about I show you around the place?”
“Sure,” I said, suddenly choked up. “I’d like that.”
SIXTY-FIVE
We walked in silence through the lobby, now filled with chimeras of all types. Several seemed to have splices from species that were endangered or extinct, including one hulking brute with a rhino horn growing out of his face. He nodded at Del as we walked by,
It was strange and unfamiliar to me, but it was Del’s world now.
By the time we stepped out onto the porch, tears were falling down my face. As we descended the steps onto the wide lawn, Del put his arm around my shoulder.
I rested my head against him and let myself cry. I was a little embarrassed, but no matter what, Del was still my oldest and closest friend. Besides, it didn’t ma
tter what he saw, what he thought. Soon he’d leave, and I’d never see him again. The finality of it hung over me as we walked, a dark echo of when I thought he was dead.
The grounds were huge and the day was beautiful. Del pointed out the solar arrays, the different crops in the fields, the maple trees and the sugar house where the sap was processed. Mostly, though, we just walked, picking up a steep trail that wound up into the woods.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.
“It’ll level out in a minute.”
“I don’t mean the terrain,” I said. “I mean all of this. This, you, Chimerica, the whole thing. Are you sure about all this?” Again, my question didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. I still had my doubts about whether Chimerica even existed, but I wasn’t asking what he believed. I was asking what he felt, what he wanted. I was asking one last time if he fully intended to abandon the world he had always known, to abandon the world that I was a part of. And to abandon me, for something so unknown. At least if he lived in the zurbs somewhere, I’d know where he was. Maybe Jerry would even give him a job.
Del stayed quiet, thinking about my question or something else, I didn’t know. The trail took us past a broad ledge that looked out over miles of green and brown ripples of land extending into the hazy blue distance. I was too distracted to appreciate the view.
I was worried about Del, but I worried about myself, too, about being left behind in a world where I had no friends, where I had lost my oldest friend and my new ones, too. I hadn’t realized it until right then, but it looked like Ruth and Pell and Sly would be disappearing from my life, as well. I had only known them for a short time, but the thought upset me deeply.
And what about Rex? He hadn’t said anything about his plans, but I knew the loyalty he felt toward his friends. Surely, he’d be going with them. I didn’t even know what Rex meant to me, but I was totally unprepared for the possibility of losing him. The realization left me unsteady on my feet.
Del wasn’t just leaving my world; he was destroying it, taking all the good parts to some secret place where I wasn’t welcome, where I could never go. Once again, anger flared inside me. Just as it was about to explode, Del leaned over and kissed the top of my head.