1503951200

by Camille Griep

  “So I guess Survivors are okay as long as they’re not me?” My quip falls flatter than the beer in my hand.

  “Perry said he had to, that the camp was ready to attack New Charity and Nelle warned him to get out. Instead, he took her. He’s sure they won’t attack with her inside the gates.”

  Goose bumps stipple my skin. In some small way her being here—and whatever fallout comes from it—is my fault. Though the Nelle I met in the clearing didn’t seem the type to be taken against her will. She seemed perfectly capable with a shotgun. “You believe her?”

  “She says she’s married to the leader of the whole operation. A Dr. Mangold. That’s not even the strangest part,” Troy continues. “Perry claims she’s the love of his life, from his boarding school days. But he’s never even mentioned her before.”

  “That’s bizarre,” I say, though I don’t find it as surprising as Troy does. Perry is a fish out of water with his own family, and almost as out of place here as I am.

  Troy stares at his hat, as if it will give some sort of counsel. “Her name is Nelle. Nelle Harris Mangold. Do you know her, Syd? You said her name that night you came to dinner. Is she a friend of yours?”

  A sensation not unlike vertigo flips the tail end of a turnover through the beer in my stomach. Not for the first time, I curse not forgetting her name as soon as I heard it. “No. I don’t know her, though I did meet her once and she mentioned Perry—I figured it was an old friendship. Did she say anything else?” Clearly she hadn’t told them about my plans to open the reservoir or I’d already be in lockup.

  Troy shook his head. “The Governor has her in the secure wing, sedated, while he tries to figure out what possessed Perry to take her. There was a struggle. Both she and Perry got pretty banged up.”

  “Do you need me to come up? To talk to her or something? I was sort of a nurse back in the City. I could come take a look at their wounds.”

  “I think Amita has that all handled. I guess I was hoping you knew something else about her. The whole thing makes me nervous. Cas had a bad vision last night—one she wouldn’t talk about—and Mama was . . . well, Mama. The Governor is mad as a wet jackrabbit.”

  “What is your father—the Governor—going to do with her?”

  “I’m not sure. There’s still a lot of explaining to do. Perry swears she can help settle things between the camp and the town, but I’d be surprised if she wants anything but the reservoir opened.”

  I take a careful pause, shifting the couch pillows around me. “I think all Survivors—at least those of us in the City—want that, Troy.”

  “I wish it were that simple, Syd. I do. But the Blessing says we can’t.”

  That damned Blessing again. I’ve been here three days, and I’m already sick of it. “Do you really believe the water caused the pandemic? Do you really think the Spirit would choose only New Charity to save? There’s a whole world out there, Troy.”

  The dreamy look ensconces his face, the same one that made my fourteen-year-old cheeks warm. “I don’t know how the Spirit feels about it, honestly. Seems like we’d be pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. But I do know this: if the reservoir gets opened, we’re finished with the New Charity we have now. We’ve made ourselves into a self-sufficient community here. Without the water, our way of life is finished, and then who do we rely on? The City?”

  Troy is dancing around the elephant in the room. As a Survivor, I am a threat to him, and he to me. I know it’s not realistic to expect him to take my side just because we loved each other as children, but this is too much. The blind selfishness of one community over another. Worse, their taking advantage of the horror of the plague and using it to create their own nirvana—dry land flooded into this high plains aberration.

  “New Charity existed before the Blessing, didn’t it?” I can’t help the accusation in my voice. “That water is ours too.”

  He shakes his head and then says the exact wrong thing. “Who knows, maybe Nelle can help come up with a solution. Maybe that’s why Perry brought her here.”

  Jealousy drags talons across my chest. “How so?”

  “She’s some sort of scientist. Engineer, I think. Maybe she can propose something that makes everyone happy.”

  An academic. No wonder she dismissed me out of hand. “It’s been five years since New Charity closed the floodgates, Troy. I think the ideas that were going to fly have already flown.”

  “I remember you being an optimist,” he says, eyes still on the hat. “I remember you being positive that the City was the place to be. You still sure of that?”

  So here the old hurts bleed out onto the fabric of my dad’s armchair. The things he never said when I left the first time, but must have felt—still feels—deeply. “I’m not being anything but realistic.”

  He stands, smooths his jeans. “I think I’m going to go along with the twins to the reservoir this afternoon. I’ve got some cows to check over a little further out. Do you need a hand saddling up for the ride?”

  I want to throw something. Why does everyone think I’m helpless? Nelle, Cas, and now Troy. I look down at myself, sweat-stained purple leotard sticking out underneath an old dress. It’s no wonder; it seems I can’t even clothe myself.

  “No, I’ve got it,” I say.

  “You don’t want me to come fetch you?”

  I imagine riding out next to Troy to the reservoir, slathering on a mask of sincere interest. Though I can’t feign curiosity about something I’ve spent my entire adult life hating, I do have to find a way to get there alone. If the field trip allows me unfettered access, I should use it. Get in, do my reconnaissance, figure out how to open the sucker, get out, go home. Just like Nelle will do as soon as she gets the chance.

  “Look, Syd, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m just tired is all,” I say. There’s no point in explaining that New Charity should have to suffer, just as everyone else has. No point in trying to convince him that I can be as self-sufficient as Nelle. The only way I can prove it to anyone is to make a difference. To keep my word to Agnes, Mina, and Doc. And let the people who’d shown so little interest in my welfare fade once again into the background.

  New Charity can keep Nelle in a cage, or parade her around as a diplomat to placate their consciences. In the meantime, I’ll be using the field trip to the reservoir to do what I came here to do, come hell or high water.

  Troy looks confused. I both do and don’t regret purposefully hurting him as I herd him out the door. But there’s no fix for it. If I’m going to force New Charity back into the dark ages, it’ll be easiest to do it when one else is in my corner.

  With Troy gone and the house empty, the quiet almost hurts my ears. It was the same the afternoon he kissed me good-bye. Telling me to have a nice life, a wish and simultaneous insult. I slump up the stairs to the pink room to find a small backpack in which to pack a lunch. On the desk next to the old cigarettes sits the spare key. Attached to it is a keychain, New Charity written in looping rhinestone script on an enamel stallion. It’s odd to see it here—I took mine with me to the City, where Danny absconded with it, making a garish and ironic necklace he wore on Tuesdays, for no particular reason. I’d tucked it into his pocket before we sent his flaming bier into the water.

  The keychain in my hand belongs to Cas. We bought them together to have something that matched—T-shirts failing due to our coloring, our preference in purses and backpacks already starting to diverge. Whether she’d put our spare key on it in hopes I’d come back or to rid herself of the things that reminded her of me, I’m not sure. I slip it in the blue backpack slung over the chair because I know the person it belongs to now: Mina.

  After that, memories of home come thick and fast. Of Danny gone and everyone waiting. Maybe this trip to the power station doesn’t have to be a scouting mission. Maybe I’ll see my chance, and if I do, I should be prepared to take it. This isn’t how I want to leave things—words unsaid between me and Pi and
Cas, even Troy. But it might be necessary.

  One backpack. Change of clothes. Underwear. Seven tins of tuna. The rest of the turnovers, smooshed, but still fresh. I take my dad’s diary, as mundane as it seems. I put on a pair of my mother’s jeans, button up a plain blouse, and tie a sweatshirt around my waist. I pull my hair up and pin it, as if I am taking the stage once more. I paw through my dad’s medicine cabinet, piling old bottles of antibiotics and acid reducers and stool softeners into the bag for Doc to sort through at his leisure, leaving a few painkillers and other essentials on the shelf for Pi.

  If I can find a way to slip away from the group, locate a way to get around the reservoir’s Ward, and slip back out unnoticed, maybe, just maybe I’ll be on my way home before sundown.

  I feel downright invincible by the time the pack is full. That is, until I head to the barn. Inside the cool and quiet corridor, my dad’s horse looks at me over his stall door, expectantly. “Don’t get your hopes up, buddy,” I say. “I’m no Cal Turner.” But I ply his cooperation with a can of rolled oats laced with molasses, slipping a halter over his neck and securing him to a rail.

  It takes me a moment to remember the location of the light switch for the tack room, hidden behind reins, halter ropes, and longe lines hanging from the wall. As with everything else in New Charity, this is a step back in time. The room smells deeply of leather and I can’t help but take a long breath in, letting the memories flood over me. I run my hands over the bits and reins and cans of spare rings and straps. There’s a pile of my dad’s blue bandanas that he used to ride with in case of allergies or injury or just to mop his brow on a hot afternoon. I shove one in my pocket for old times’ sake.

  My old saddle—a kid-sized English sport model—is still draped over a saddle horse. I take my mom’s instead. It’s heavier, an intricately tooled western seat that will better accommodate my adult-sized ass and allow me to secure my backpack to it.

  I’m late. The clot of riders headed over the bridge through town a half hour ago. I’m tightening the girth, debating whether to leave his halter on beneath his bridle, when I decide to take an old shortcut over the Basalt. I mount up and skirt my way east, away from town, hoping to cross at a low spot about a half-mile upstream. The Purcells used to use the spot to cross when they fished, even had a handhold strung up over the water, to help keep balance over the slick rocks underfoot.

  When I get to the crossing, though, everything is different. The grass on the banks is long and slick and the water is high. Too high and fast to take the horse through it, for sure. That damn reservoir probably has every last dry gulch filled to the brim. I take off the bridle and clip the reins to the halter I left on underneath. I leave the gray enough lead to graze, and secure him to the tree with a slipknot. It’s not ideal, but it’s the only knot I remember. I double-check my backpack to make sure it’s secure.

  The Purcells’ crossing rope is still strung up over the water, but it looks old and rotten—like no one’s used it in years. I’m hoping to hook my legs over the top and shimmy over upside down. The rope burns will suck, but it’s better than having to hike the mile or so I remember it being to the substation gate while soaking wet. The summer haze overhead isn’t dry enough to be useful for anything but horseflies, which the gray gelding whisks away with his tail.

  It takes me several tries to swing myself up on the rope. I am thankful it is summer and the full branches of the cottonwoods shield me from the windows of the Purcells’ trailer park compound a quarter mile down the road. If anyone saw, they’d be laughing themselves to tears as the old rope sags, my ass dipping into the water with each heave of my body. At least the cold keeps me motivated. On the other side I drop my feet and sink into oozing mud. I yank my boots out by the straps and on firmer ground rinse them in the current. I curse everything as I squelch my way toward the reservoir.

  The mile passes slowly, preoccupied as I am with my wet feet and stiff jeans. The Willis horses come into view alongside a few others, and beyond the large clearing, the power station hums like a malevolent wasp. I don’t see any people, but I look three or four times before I step out from the trees.

  As I get closer to the gate in the chain-link fence, I realize I don’t have much of a plan. Get in. Find the group. Learn the lay of the land. Find a way to lose the group, again. I’m still riding high on the promise of home, and not thinking clearly.

  There’s a tap on my shoulder from behind me. I’m certain I leap ten feet into the air, my heart and lungs tangled in my throat. “What the hell happened to you?” Cas says.

  “Good god, Cas. It’s not polite to scare people like that.”

  She’s not amused. In fact, she looks outraged. “No it’s not, but you’re going to get yourself killed if you go in there. Don’t.”

  I try to play dumb. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything.”

  “Yet,” she says. “You haven’t done anything yet.”

  I jump up and down to pull my wet jeans away from my seat. The wind has picked up and I’m starting to get cold. Though I’d like to be having this conversation somewhere warmer, I’d rather not be having it at all.

  “I know what you’re planning. Turn around and go home. All the way home if you want.”

  The Foresight. Of course. How could I have been so stupid? Being blessed with my own special gift of shortsight, I guess. I hear Cas going on and on, but I’m not really listening. “Is everyone inside?”

  She grabs my arms. “I’m serious, Cressyda. Whatever you think you’re going to go in there and do, you’re going to destroy yourself. Us. Everything. Please don’t.”

  “Knock it off, Cas. New Charity will be fine. Just like it was before. You’ll still have crops, just less of them. Trade can start back up. The town can be a part of the rest of the world again. It’ll be good for you, good for everyone. I promise.”

  “Syd, you can’t go near the Ward.”

  Wards had been rampant around New Charity when we were children. Back then the small seals of elemental energy were designed to repel or capture, imbued with the power of the person who’d lent their magic for the purpose. There was enough magic to go around back then—magic of the elements. But we always knew where they were, and what kind of damage they’d do. Uncle Pi used his air magic to form a shrill whistle when he escorted the Sanctuary school kids to the mercantile candy aisle. The bank vault repelled a breach with tongues of fire. The town gate grew icy and slick to the touch at nighttime. Perhaps this Ward would pull the ground out from below me with earth magic. “So I get thrown a few feet, so what?”

  “This is different. You know about the sacrifice, right?”

  “Of magic? Magic you and Len and the Bishop are now the only arbiters of?”

  Cas narrows her eyes at me. “You think the Bishop would ask the town for their magic and then not keep us around to see the future? That would be pretty ignorant, don’t you think?”

  “Precisely.” I move toward the gate again.

  “Syd!” Cas stamps the ground. “All the magic. That’s what the Ward protecting the floodgate is made of, how the Spirit used the collection of New Charity’s gifts.”

  “Bullshit,” I say, unease worming around my gut. Why hadn’t Pi said anything when he’d told me about giving up his own gift? “That’s not a Ward, that’s a catastrophe. No one in their right mind would combine all the elements like that. If a Ward like that were unleashed, New Charity would be a crater. Why would he put everyone in danger like that?”

  “He believes he’s protecting us. He’s an instrument of the Spirit.”

  “Oh my god.” Idiots. Sheep. The magic belongs to the Bishop. All of it.

  Cas’s volume drops a bit. “Not everyone was happy once they found out.”

  “No shit?” I’m furious beyond words and twice as cold as I was a few minutes ago. I still can’t believe the Bishop has gone this far and that the people of New Charity have let him—hinging the survival of the reservoir to the surviva
l of the town itself. Had the Bishop shaped the Ward to keep his own flock from disturbing his verdant utopia? Or did he want to take out every last Survivor in range if they ever broke through the wall?

  “I don’t think we understood exactly how the magic would be used at first. But there’s no arguing that it’s a good protection. The town is united in wanting the Blessing and the Ward to stay intact.”

  “So there’s no way to get around the Ward?”

  “The floodgate is the Ward, Syd.”

  “Damn it, Cas. All these gifts. They could be used in so many other, better ways. How can everyone just sit still for this?”

  Cas glances over her shoulder. “It’s been years now. When that much of yourself goes missing . . . after a while you forget. It’s something nobody talks about anymore.”

  I swallow back the rest of my disbelief and focus on Cas’s alarm. “You saw something bad, right? Where I get hurt?” She doesn’t answer. “Well, come with me, then. Help me avoid whatever it is.” I came all the way here. I’m closer than anyone in the City has been. I have to do something, anything. At least make a point.

  Cas won’t move. So I leave her gaping at me, and head inside.

  Once through the gate, the doorway to the power plant looms large and brown. I open it as quietly as I can, Cas, from the steps below, still imploring me to wait. I let the door close on her, listening for the voices of the group. I want to know where they are, though I’m not sure I want to be seen yet.

  There are helpful signs on the wall lit in low green lights. I follow the arrows, and have to duck behind an archway when the group suddenly spills out from the door. “The computers in this room,” Sheriff Jayne is saying, “keep the lights on in New Charity and function largely unassisted because of the kind of software those of you interested in engineering will be able to write someday.”