“That’s normal, dear.” Miriam pats her hand reassuringly.
The floorboards creak, and I look up. “Grandpa?” He limps toward me, using a broom as a walking stick. I run to him and throw my arms around him, trying not to knock him over. I hug him tightly.
“I’m feeling much better,” he says. “Thanks to my healers.” Miriam smiles. “You’ve come back to us,” she says. “Come, sit. Have something to eat.”
Grandpa follows us to the table, and Ginny begins serving the food.
“Smells good,” my grandfather says. “What is it?”
“Beef stew,” Miriam says proudly. “Noelle helped me make it.” The meal is delicious. It has real meat and vegetables, none of the substitutes and nutri-infusions they give us in Fell. I’ve tasted Winnow food before, when John shared his lunch with me once on the platform. The flavors remind me of him instantly. Right now, the memory of him and the presence of my grandfather are the only sources of comfort.
When the meal is finished, Hale gets up from the table and starts putting on his work boots. “Come with me,” he says to Ledger, who goes to put on John’s shoes.
“Where are you going?” Ginny asks.
“To finish the road,” Hale says. “Tonight.”
My heart drops. That was quick. I look to Miriam, who nods consolingly in my direction. It will be okay, she seems to say.
“It’s so late,” Ginny says.
“If we work through the night, they can leave at dawn,” Hale answers. “That puts them in Pedanta by tomorrow evening.”
“He’s right,” my grandfather says. “We’ve put you folks through enough. The sooner we can be out of here, the better.”
Ginny nods. “Well, if you all don’t mind, I’m going back to bed.” We say our good nights, and she heads upstairs.
After we clean up, I sit with Miriam and Grandpa before the fire, but I get the feeling they want to be alone, so I excuse myself. “I’ll head off, too, I guess,” I say, and kiss Grandpa and Miriam good night.
I head upstairs to the spare room, where I’ve been sleeping. Ginny has made me a bed from an old mattress and a sleeping bag. When I’m settled in and just dozing off, I hear the front door close. My eyes pop open. Hale and Ledger are home. The road is finished. So we really will be leaving at first light. I’m not ready.
I let my mind wander as I struggle toward sleep. What is it about him that has me so nervous? It’s his demeanor, for one, but also the way he catches my eyes with that familiar look, like he’s seeing something in me no one else does. It’s unnerving, having John’s eyes look at me that way. It’s as if he—Ledger—has displaced all the life that was in John, everything I remembered and adored. Now when I look at him, all I see is what could have been. What was. My heart aches as I finally drift off. My dreams are fitful, full of dark figures, fire and the faces of people inside it, burning. When I wake, it is close to three in the morning. My mouth and throat are dry as a bone, but the sleeping bag is drenched with my sweat. I peel myself out and change into a spare shirt Ginny has loaned me. Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I rub my eyes and then tiptoe downstairs in the dark. In the kitchen, I get a drink. Page pops her head up from her corner bed. She stares past me, unblinking. “What is it, girl?” I turn around and jump about a foot. The front door is ajar.
Moonlight casts a veil of eerie blue over the Winnow streets. Everything is well lit and bright. I check the shoes by the door. John’s pair is missing. Without thinking, I head out into the night.
Outside, I follow the alley toward the town square and the statue of Prospero. I can see the monument in the distance, the pale smooth stone illuminated with an unearthly glow. The leader of the Rising. The monument dedicated to him. And there, sitting at the base, catching the moonlight in the strands of his light hair—John’s hair—is Ledger.
I linger in the shadows, scooting toward him along the brick wall. My foot hits a broken bottle and crunches it. I freeze as I feel it pierce the sole of my shoe, then my flesh. My throat unleashes a whimper. I look at Ledger, whose eyes are now searching the alley.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he calls into the darkness. I take a breath and step out into the light. “I guess you couldn’t either,” he says softly when he sees me.
“How did you know it was me?”
Ledger looks away. “That’s a very difficult question to answer.”
“I’m sure you can manage,” I say.
“I don’t think you would understand.”
“Try me.”
“I can feel you. Your energy.” He looks down, hiding his eyes.
“Oh,” I say. I guess he’s right. I don’t really understand.
Ledger gives me a wary look. “If you imagine it like color,” he says, opening his hands into a rounded shape. “Colors you can feel. Well, yours is quite strong . . .”
“What color is it?”
“That’s just it. It’s many colors. Not just one. It sort of . . . stands out, I guess.”
“No surprise there. I’ve never really fit in anywhere.”
Ledger sizes me up. “Some of us are born not to.”
I feel awkwardness between us and shift my weight to the good foot. Ledger notes it. “You’re hurt?” He crouches down to examine my foot, reaches for it, then pulls his hand back. “You’re bleeding.”
“Thanks,” I say. “That’s really helpful.”
He stands. His eyes squeeze shut with embarrassment.
“Stupid Winnow litter,” I say lightly. “I guess I forgot where I was for a second.”
“Mmmm, I know the feeling,” Ledger says. He even laughs a little, in a strange way that feels all too human. The hairs on my arm stand up as I’m reminded of John, my friend.
“You need to go back, take care of your foot.”
He’s right. I should go back. I never should have come out here to begin with. But my curiosity has won out. I decide to see it through. “I’m fine,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”
Ledger sits down on the monument again and reclines. “Sit,” he says, then adds, “if you like.”
“Why are you out here anyway?”
“This.” He nods toward the sky. I look up and see a clear view of the stars. There are hundreds of them. Maybe more. I’ve never seen so many. The bioslice doesn’t have stars programmed into it for some reason. For a second, I even think I understand why. Something stirs in an untouched region inside me. A region I know Fell would not allow.
“I’ve never seen the sky this way,” Ledger says.
“Well, that makes two of us.” I tip my head back to marvel at the patterns of stars lighting up the night. “My sky back home . . .” I catch myself. Home. Home is gone. “Back in the Vale,” I correct. “The sky is just really different.”
“Yes. I know.”
I feel a flash of anger. How does he know? How does he know anything at all? Who is this imposter, pretending to know me, to care about my world? And why has he taken my best friend? Why couldn’t he just let him be, in peace? John deserved at least that much. How foolish I was to let my guard down. I lean forward and speak in a low voice.
“You know, you may think you have them all fooled,” I say. “But I don’t believe you. Not for a second.” I push back against the stone, my heart thudding in my chest. “If you think we are setting off tomorrow with you, without knowing what you are, you’re wrong. Because let me tell you, I’ve lost everyone I care about. Everyone except my grandfather. And if you so much as even think about taking him from me, so help me . . .” My voice disappears in the darkness.
Ledger stares at me, his gaze tense, his features showing his confusion. “You think I am here to hurt you or your grandfather?”
“I don’t know what you’re here for.”
“Miriam already told you. If you don’t want to believe me, believe her.”
“Everything’s been taken from me. My home, my life, my family.” I look him in the eye. “My best friend. I’m not sure what I believe anymore.�
��
Ledger’s expression blanks. “I’m not John,” he says calmly. “And I’m not some Fell agent. You know what I am. I know you know.”
“I don’t. I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. When you opened that volume for the first time, you felt me there. In the pages and the words. And before that. I’ve always been with you, Noelle. Isn’t it true you knew my name before any other?”
“It’s not possible,” I say. “Books are just things. Just paper and ink.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“If it’s not true, then prove it to me. Make me understand.”
“Make you understand? Don’t you hear how absurd that sounds? Noelle, you’re a reader. I shouldn’t have to make you understand. You should know me. As well as you know yourself.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I whisper. “I don’t know myself.”
“Well, I know you,” he says. “It may not make any sense, but I do. Human beings are just that. Beings. And in their being they hold certain energy. When they die, when their creations are gone, that energy remains. I am the product of thousands of years of human lives poured onto pages, parchment, vellum, stone. I’m alive because human beings created me. They breathed their life into me.”
I search his eyes, cavernous and deep. “If that’s true, then show me how. I know you can. So do it.”
Ledger looks stunned. “I can’t. It’s too soon.”
“What does that mean? Too soon? Too soon for what? If you want me to believe you, then show me!” Exhaustion and grief overcome me. I reach for his hand. My fingers enlace his, our palms touch, skin to skin. I hold his hand the way John held mine on the night he died.
“Noelle, stop!” Ledger tears his hand from my grasp. But it is too late. I’ve already seen it. I’ve seen inside . . . him.
The sensation of falling is quick and sudden. The words encircle me like an endless fog. Galaxies of books explode around me, hundreds of billions of pages gild my sight into infinity. I’m tumbling through eons of the written word, flying in an eternity of stories, tales, and truths. His soul is a vast library. I am there, with him, circling above the Earth, a tiny seed of light in the distance. The gleam of the stars warp as we near it. Colors burst when we plunge into the drunken haze of our atmosphere. A calm coats us, and we descend. We arrive suddenly, like waking from a dream.
There is the floor of the RV, the blood pooling into view. I feel John all around me, the last of him depleting. My eyes close with his. I take my last breath as he does. Moments of stillness pass, quiet and empty. The heaviness of death gives weight to the air. Then my heart starts beating again. My lungs expand. I’m rising from the floor. I see him, his spirit. Ledger. His descent. His birth.
He’s past, present, and future all at once. Alive and yet not. Awake and yet asleep, dreaming a constant dream of existence. Eternal as the words that make him. When he pulls back and breaks our bond, I know he has given this to me. This vision. This piece of himself. I pull away. Tears flow from my eyes uncontrollably. “It’s true. He really is gone, isn’t he?”
Ledger’s eyes look glassy, pained. “Yes.”
I try furiously to understand. “Did you do it? Did you kill him?”
“Of course not.”
“But you came for me?” He nods.
“Why?”
“Because you needed me.”
“And John? Why him?”
“The timing was right. He was there. He was with you . . .” Ledger pauses his voice for the first time, betraying something dark. “And that’s where I needed to be.”
“So you used him to get to me? You knew I trusted him.”
“I could have come to you as anyone else. Well, anyone that had passed, technically . . .” Ledger says. “But if I had come to you, out there, in your most desperate place, as anyone else, would you have let me help you?”
He’s right. I wouldn’t have trusted just anyone. Not after what had happened. “Maybe not,” I say reluctantly.
Ledger smiles slightly. It’s the first time I see it. The smile is the same as John’s. The impossible combination of joy and sorrow I feel when I look at him makes my throat tighten, my eyes burn. And it’s then I realize: I can’t do this. I have to somehow say good-bye to that face, my memories of it, at least. Especially if I’m going to be traveling with Ledger to Pedanta in the morning. I have to let John go. Somehow . . .
“Ledger,” I begin. “There is something I have to do.”
“I know what you’re going to say. And I understand.” I inch toward him. “Can you, can you just stop looking at me?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Just close your eyes for a second?”
Ledger bites his lower lip. “You can’t touch me.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, feeling defensive. “I won’t.”
He closes his eyes. His expression fades. I try to look past everything I know, to see just the face of my best friend. Suddenly there it is! There he is. John.
I trace his features lightly, hovering above his lips, cheeks, and nose with my fingertips. Behind them I feel the warmth, the memories of being with John. I don’t know how to do this well or gracefully. There’s only one way I know how to feel, and that’s deeply. I trace his eyes, knowing when I look into them now I will feel nothing but emptiness. “Good-bye, JP,” I manage to whisper. I grip the leather cuff on my wrist. This is all I have left of him. “Wherever you are, save my place next to you.”
Ledger opens his eyes, washing away the illusion of John before me. I snatch my hand away, feeling sad and foolish. I turn, wiping my face. When I get up to go, I stumble on one of the cobblestones, forgetting my foot.
Ledger rises. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I tell him. I take a few labored steps toward the alley. I feel his eyes on me, but I don’t turn around. When I reach the house and go inside, I have the uncanny feeling that I’ve begun something I can’t turn back from. Even the warmth of the sleeping bag is not enough to stop the chill running through me. Miriam’s words echo in my mind.
Don’t be fooled, my dear. Not for a moment. He isn’t one of us.
LEDGER
TWELVE
It killed him to watch her walk away, to not help her. He was quickly becoming used to the sight of human blood, but hers was another thing. Hers struck him in a way Ledger did not like. Letting her see inside him had been excruciating, but necessary. He had to prove himself to her. Especially if he had any hope of helping her as planned.
Stop it, Ledger thought as he walked alone through the alley. He had to stop the intensity of emotions running through him. The human emotions. They were dangerous. New and unbridled, they could spell trouble. He had to shut them down quickly. But how? As hard as he tried to distance himself, he felt inextricably connected to her, as if by some miracle she had always been with him, or him always with her. He knew, too, that this was part of his journey. It was a necessary part of it. But he feared the line between necessary and unnecessary would become difficult to see.
Inside the Potts’s house, Ledger took off his shoes and headed to the living room. The couch was short and lumpy, and Ledger’s body was much too long for it. But he lay down anyway, rolled on his side, and searched for sleep. That’s when he heard the voices.
He sat up and listened, thankful for the acuteness of his hearing. Led by instinct, Ledger went to the door of William’s room and listened. He imagined William and Miriam sitting at the bedside, a cup of tea for each of them, steam rising from them, mixing with their whispers. He closed his eyes to listen better.
“Are you sure they’re gone?” Miriam was saying. “Did you see them pass?”
“Fell killed them. Kiralynn and Loden are dead. I can feel it.”
“Poor child. I can’t imagine what she’s going through.” There was a pause. “You really have to tell her, William. What good is it, keeping it from her now? After all that’s happened. She will find out one way or another.”
&n
bsp; “She can’t. Not after everything she’s been through.”
“That’s precisely why you need to tell her,” Miriam insisted. “That’s why she needs to know.”
“It’s not that simple. Things have changed, Mir. The world isn’t like it was.”
“It was simpler then; I’ll give you that. We used to have fun then; didn’t we, William?”
“The most fun.”
“And Edith?” Miriam was asking, a twinge of sadness in her voice. “Is she still with us?”
“Edith passed several years ago.”
“I’m sorry, Will. I . . . I didn’t know.”
A pause, and Ledger imagined William was overcome with grief.
“I don’t believe in Prospero’s dream, Miriam.”
“I know. But you will see. It is true. Every word. The Rising will depend on it, whether you believe it or not.”
“Either way, we have to leave here. It isn’t safe.”
“You could stay behind.”
“Even if I could stay, even if it didn’t put all of you in danger, I have to be with Noelle. I’m all she has now.”
She has me, Ledger thought. At least for now.
“If you’re not going to tell her everything, just tell her about Prospero. She deserves that much.”
“No. No. That’s over now, Miriam. I’m not going to dredge up old stories.”
“Have it your way. But you can’t ignore the past forever.”
“I’m not planning on forever. Just—for now.”
“The truth will come out, Will. It always does. And when it does, she will wish you had been the one to let her know who she really is.”
Ledger could hear William’s deep sigh, the fear weighing down his voice, then a faint whisper. “For her sake, I hope that doesn’t happen.”
NOELLE
THIRTEEN
I’m high above the Earth. I’m plunging from a great height, passing through clouds and sun. The warmth around me is thick and red. Too warm, too thick. And stifling. It’s John’s blood. I’m wrapped in it. Soaking in it. Drowning in it . . .
I bolt upright and push away my sleeping bag. The fabric, soaked again with my sweat, clings as I wriggle out. I lie sprawled across the cool floor of the spare room in the Potts’s house. A nightmare, I think. I’ve never had one like that before.
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