Renegade Red

by Lauren Bird Horowitz

  Judah’s posture eased when he realized it was Noa. “They wouldn’t let me come in,” he said, dark eyes stormy.

  Noa leaned into his shoulder, let the feel of his muscles’ knots loosen hers. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  She felt him nod curtly, but his hand was gentle as it slid into hers. They moved swiftly together in silence, as if in some unspoken agreement to talk only when in their own, safe space.

  Judah knew that for Noa, the safest place would always be her tree. The large one out on the grounds near the groundskeeper’s shack, the tree where she said she always felt protected. She’d thought they would immediately discuss Jeremy, but when her mouth opened beneath the safety of the tangled branches, she whispered something else: “It was hard to see my parents disappointed. My mom. It somehow made me miss them more.”

  Judah’s hand tightened on hers, tension rippling down his fingers. “Sometimes I think I have it easier, not having a family.”

  Noa exhaled softly, leaned into him and against the trunk’s smooth bark. For some reason, her free hand was tracing her scar. “Yes,” she murmured, “I guess you can’t miss what isn’t there.”

  • • •

  Jeremy still wasn’t back in Chandler’s class on Monday, and Olivia was uncharacteristically disheveled. Her worry about her boyfriend radiated from her frizzy tumbleweed of former Mohawk, from the wrinkles in her pants and blouse. Noa knew she’d dressed from a pile on the floor.

  Noa had tried to comfort her, had even enlisted Judah to ensure Olivia would never be alone, but Olivia remained nearly catatonic. Noa knew she was afraid to say aloud what might have happened: Review, the Man with White Hands. Students who met the Otec rarely came back.

  Noa wished she had listened to Olivia earlier about Jeremy’s acting strangely. But what could Noa have done?

  What Noa did not share was how, since Jeremy’s disappearance, she herself had been feeling … more strangely … herself. The figment Girl haunted her constantly now; walls flickered and blurred with ever-growing frequency. Noa had tried to tell Judah, but after days without Jeremy’s return, he’d shut down, closed off. His body screamed the words he wouldn’t say: Don’t, don’t name it, I can’t have you vanish too.

  In Chandler’s class, Noa closed her eyes against the smooth olive skin, the flutter-kiss from a little mouth shaped like a bow. Judah was right: she couldn’t risk losing everything—Judah, Olivia, Isla too—by allowing herself to lose her mind.

  “Okay, everyone,” Dr. Chandler announced to begin the class. Noa opened her eyes and gasped at how haggard he suddenly looked, as if he’d aged forty years since Parents’ Weekend. His teacherly messiness was gone, replaced by something far more worrisome.

  Shakily, but with a deep breath as if to muster up some courage, Dr. Chandler held up a hand. “No, don’t take out your textbooks. We’re going to try something … new.”

  Noa, Olivia, and Miles—who had chosen again, for some reason, to shine his star on Noa and sit beside her—all froze identically in surprise. Dr. Chandler’s hands had curled into little, shaking fists.

  “These dates and names are points in history. But we never think about what they mean.” His eyes fell briefly on Noa’s. Olivia turned to Noa, perplexed; Noa tried not to react. “I want you to”—Chandler took a bracing breath—“imagine what these events and people may have been like.” Shocked gasps rippled through the classroom. “Imagine them as parents, children, brothers, sisters…”

  Noa’s head suddenly spun, her body swayed; the Girl smashed into her mind. She heard herself cry out, felt her cheek against the cool, cool floor.

  From somewhere above her, Noa heard Miles: “Get the nurse!” His words sounded strange and far away; she looked up at him, at his face hovering over hers where she must have fallen, but somehow it wasn’t his. The sandy hair, the freckles turned to chocolate ringlets soft as silk; his hands on her shoulders became small and sticky, warm—and there was something wrapped up with Noa’s legs: warm, round legs, tangled in shared sheets, an unzipped sleeping bag. Everything was upside down and backside up, mismatching puzzle pieces from her mind, her memory, her heart.

  Noa tried to reach to touch them, fit the pieces together into an image that made sense—and they shimmered through her fingers. Clear sensations took their place: Olivia’s hands and spiky, frizzy hair; Miles’ blue eyes and hanging forelock. And that sound—the click-clack of heels through the doorway, followed by a high, shrill voice.

  “What happened here?” Ms. Jaycee, somewhere to Noa’s left.

  “We were imagining … She fainted…” Carly Ann, words fading into buzz. Dr. Chandler’s lower tones, Ms. Jaycee’s answering shrill vibrato, then sharp talons pulling Noa up, nails piercing Noa’s shoulders.

  Noa wasn’t sure what was happening, but her survival instincts went on high alert. Cover! a voice screamed inside her head, conjuring Judah, catlike, ready to fight. Focus and cover!

  “Oh, Ms. Jaycee!” Noa trilled, anchoring herself as best she could to the plane of here and now. Her swimming eyes found Ms. Jaycee’s sharp ones; she stretched her mouth into what she hoped looked like an embarrassed smile. “They didn’t need to call you, I just didn’t have enough for lunch. Total low-blood-sugar spell.”

  Ms. Jaycee’s hawk-eyes narrowed.

  “Used to happen all the time when I was little!” Noa insisted, smiling more widely.

  Ms. Jaycee studied her, seeming unconvinced; Noa felt sweat sliding down her back, felt her head begin to sway—

  “It’s true,” Miles suddenly said, drawing Ms. Jaycee’s stare. “I was right next to her. She fainted before class even began.” Olivia quietly helped steady Noa’s wobbling as Ms. Jaycee sized Miles up, then decided to believe him. Noa said a silent prayer of thanks to Miles’ unexpected kindness. No one had more credibility to gamble—his lie was taking quite a risk. And they weren’t even friends.

  So why?

  Noa didn’t have time to wonder as Ms. Jaycee turned full-force to Dr. Chandler. She cocked her head, gave him that sad, sympathetic smile.

  Noa’s stomach dropped. Miles’ lie couldn’t save them both.

  “The Otec will need to see you.”

  “Praise Otec,” the class chorused in hushed unison.

  Ms. Jaycee held out and fluttered her peach-polished tips. “Come along.”

  Dr. Chandler, pale as paper, began to follow, then suddenly whipped back to the class. “Don’t forget your last assignment,” he urged, looking straight at Noa. Then Ms. Jaycee’s peach talons closed on his arm, yanked him forward and away.

  Too late, Noa realized she should have said goodbye.

  • • •

  Noa ran to Judah’s room, cheeks flushed even as her whole body shivered. Panic had sharpened her senses, but her mind whirled so fast she could barely process what she saw and almost collided with the Residential Supervisor making his rounds through the Boys’ Annex. At the last possible moment, a hand pulled Noa into a hidden doorway, saving her from being caught in violation of the rules of coed visitation—an instant sentence of Review.

  Noa looked up; her savior, again, was Miles.

  She began to thank him, but Miles quickly put his hand over her mouth, his palm warm against her lips, smelling faintly of peanuts. After a moment, they heard a door open and shut, and Miles peeked around the corner, then let her go.

  “Coast is clear.”

  Noa sighed shakily. “Why, why do you keep saving me?”

  Miles shook his head, brow furrowed. “To be honest, I don’t know. Looking out for you just … feels right.”

  They locked eyes a moment, and Noa bit her lip. For a moment, she almost thought she saw a flash of distant yearning in his eyes….

  But Miles stepped back, flashed that golden-retriever, friendly grin. “Hurry up and get to Judah’s. I need to rest up before rescuing you next.
”

  • • •

  Noa flew inside Judah’s door. He was instantly wary.

  “It was terrible, Judah,” Noa breathed, afraid even to speak too loud. She sank onto his futon, the black one where she’d so often lain safe inside his arms. She nestled backward, desperate to feel that safety again, and he lay at her side—but for some reason it felt uncomfortable, mismatched, just like everything else these days. Even Judah’s messy clothes, strewn about the room, looked somehow out of place.

  Almost like the room belonged to someone else.

  Noa took a shaky breath, pressed her palms downward on the futon and sat up again, trying to ground herself. “Ms. Jaycee took Dr. Chandler. To see the Otec.”

  Judah sat up to face her, and she watched him nervously. Too late, he said, “Praise Otec.”

  Noa barely breathed. “You too?”

  Judah scowled sharply, turned away. “You need to forget about this. Dr. Chandler is not your problem. Jeremy and Olivia are not your problem.”

  “It’s not just them, Judah, you know that—”

  “Stop, Noa!” Judah interrupted. “Don’t you get it? If we talk about this stuff, if we even think about it, we could be next. We could lose each other!”

  “I’m not going anywhere—”

  “It won’t be your choice,” Judah hissed. “Do you want to leave me? And Olivia? And Isla? Your own sister?”

  Noa pressed her hands against her temples, shut her eyes. “Judah I can’t help it! Something is wrong. They’re our friends. Even Dr. Chandler in a weird way is a friend. I can’t ignore it—”

  “I’m not saying ignore it! I’m saying…” Judah threw up his hands, scowled harder, steeling himself. “I don’t know. Just don’t look.”

  “How?” Noa asked. He snorted, but she insisted, “No, I’m really asking, Judah! How? Tell me how we can go back!”

  Judah tensed so much he became a knot that broke. His body sagged, then trembled. Noa realized he was … afraid.

  He shook himself as if to shake away the weakness, took her hands hard, looked firmly into her eyes. “We don’t think about them, we don’t think anything but us, here, together.”

  “But Judah … she’s haunting me,” Noa wailed softly.

  Judah shuddered, dropped her hands, curled backward and covered his face. Noa waited for him to ask who she meant, what she was talking about, but he didn’t. Instead, he said something else: “Noa, please,” he pleaded, voice small, and breaking, “She’s not real. Forget her.”

  It was the smallness that undid her. She leapt up, angry, pulled the napkin she’d stolen from the Dining Hall from her pocket. The words were messy, the pen having often pressed holes right through the grain. She tried to make him take it; he refused; so instead she read it to him:

  Girl

  my lids close and your eyes open:

  silt-rich and promise-thick,

  chocolate pools for wildflowers

  if I could only

  stay

  and

  watch.

  I blink—you ringlet up,

  snail-curled inside your shell. A spiral

  I can’t pick from

  endless, shapeless sands.

  But when I write—I feel you,

  fingers small and fat in mine,

  we ink each word together

  we make sticky prints in sap.

  Who are we, are we starfish?

  Hand-cups sucked together fast?

  I taste your salt

  I smell your tang

  Why

  do

  you

  never

  last?

  “Who is she, Judah? Who is she?” Noa begged, crying now.

  “Noa…” His voice was ragged, but she saw him glance reflexively toward his bed—and the way he instantly tore his gaze back.

  But Noa knew his body, knew its words. She was fluent in his smallest movements. She flew to his bed, to the spot beneath, pried up his floorboard—a trick he had learned from her. There, in the secret space, she saw it: the sketchbook, hidden like the journal had been in hers.

  Judah cried out in protest—not words but noise—but Noa didn’t listen. She flipped open the cover, rapidly turned page after page after page. They were filled, all filled, with hundreds of sketches, all of the same face. A small, impish face with chocolate curls, drawn with exactness from every angle.

  The Girl.

  • • •

  “Judah?” Noa held the pages in shaking hands. Judah shook his head, ran his hands roughly through his hair. “This is her, Judah! You see her too?”

  Judah nodded miserably. “Everywhere, every time I close my eyes. Just like in your poem.”

  Noa flew to his side, knelt beside him. “Who is she, Judah?” she cried. “Why is she never here?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve looked everywhere, I’ve driven myself insane—”

  “You should have told me—”

  “No!” He spat angrily. “Look around us, Noa! Look what happens to people who question, who see what they’re not supposed to see!”

  “But don’t you feel it?” she demanded. They were face-to-face and breathing hard; blood pounded in his cheeks. They had never fought before, not really, but somehow it felt so familiar—together, eye-locked, full of heat—as if their bond were forged in conflict, always had been from the start.

  Noa tried to steady her voice, calm her fury. “She’s important, Judah. That’s the only thing I know for sure. That she’s important, and—”

  “Somewhere else,” Judah finished helplessly, deflating. Noa felt it too; without the rage, only emptiness was left. She leaned her forehead against his, steepled—but Judah still would not give in. “She’s somewhere else, but we’re here, Noa. We’re here, and we’re together. That’s what we need to protect.”

  • • •

  At lunch, Noa couldn’t stop thinking about her fight with Judah. She turned it over and over in her head as she chewed her chicken salad without tasting it. Judah didn’t even try to eat; he just stared at her, frowning intently, as if to change her mind with the fierceness of his thoughts alone.

  Annabelle looked from one to the other in their silence, curious about this strange, unspoken war. Olivia, however, didn’t seem to notice, lost in her own anxiety.

  Annabelle finally noticed him first. “Oh my God.” Her fork hit the table with a clatter, startling them all to look.

  Jeremy Robsen had just entered the Dining Hall.

  Olivia became a blur, on her feet and over to Jeremy before Noa could even exhale. She crashed into him in a fevered hug—a display she would have considered far too simpering only days before—not caring who looked or saw. Jeremy actually looked a bit confused. He stood motionless for a moment before slowly lifting his arms around her too.

  “I bet you did all this just to get out of wearing tails,” Olivia teased, tearful with joy. She hugged him again, then pulled him indelicately to their table.

  Before Jeremy had even taken his seat, Olivia was grilling him. “What the hell happened to you? Do you know how freaked we’ve been? And what’s with the choirboy hair?” Noa was so relieved to see a glimmer of Olivia’s signature brashness that for a moment, she was sure everything was going to be okay.

  Noa gave Judah a tiny smile, wanting him to share in this moment; she knew he would read her thoughts just from her face, the way they often spoke without words. But he wasn’t looking back at her; he was watching Jeremy, frowning. Noa noticed for the first time that Jeremy looked a little … different. Not in an obvious way, but his uniform was immaculate, hair neatly combed, eyes free of mischief. He didn’t tease Olivia for her interrogation, either, as Noa would have expected him to; he merely took it calmly.

  Really calmly.

  “I fee
l much better now,” Jeremy said simply. Noa noticed he was also sitting particularly still in his chair, not draping on it backward or tilting it on two legs and fidgeting, per usual Jeremy style.

  “Gee, don’t overwhelm us with the deets,” Olivia laughed, eyes bright. Or was it, Noa wondered now, that Jeremy’s eyes seemed flat? His whole self actually seemed a little dimmer now that his annoying, smug little glint was gone.

  Jeremy just shrugged. “I was feeling out of sorts—”

  Judah glanced at Noa. ‘Out of sorts?’

  “—so I went to the Otec for Review—”

  “Praise Otec,” Annabelle, Jeremy, and Olivia chorused, Judah stumbling in a little late. He looked warningly at Noa, who had missed the recitation entirely. She bit her lip, but no one else had seemed to notice.

  Annabelle leaned toward Jeremy with huge eyes. “You met the Man with White Hands?”

  Jeremy smiled blandly. “I was Reviewed, and now I feel much calmer. I was having these terrible dreams before, even when I was awake. The Otec helped me.”

  “Praise Otec,” Noa mumbled with the others, glancing at Judah. But Judah’s eyes were on Jeremy, wary.

  Even Olivia was starting to look uncertain. “You feel … better, Jer?”

  Jeremy nodded calmly. “I had forgotten to focus on what’s here right now. The Man with White Hands reminded me that’s all we need to worry about.” Jeremy smiled blandly at Olivia. “Going to the ball, doing our homework. The Otec—”

  “Praise Otec.”

  “—worries about the rest, that’s how he keeps us safe. And it’s so much easier this way.” Jeremy sighed, content. “I’m glad he sent me back here for a while. So I could remind you guys, too.”

  “What do you mean, ‘a while’?” Noa replied quickly.

  Jeremy just smiled serenely at Olivia. “Can’t wait to take my lady to the big dance.”

  • • •

  Judah didn’t say a word until he’d pulled her into his room and closed the door. Immediately after lunch, he’d grabbed Noa’s tray, bussed it with his, and pulled her from the Dining Hall, tight with tension.

  “Judah—” Noa began.

  Judah held up his hand, jaw set. His eyes began to fill; he shook them clear angrily. “I just have this feeling…” He shook his head again, steeled himself. “Like I’m going to lose you. Like somehow … we’re only together when we’re here—”