1503951200

by Camille Griep

  When Perry took Nelle. That’s rich. “If you all expected to go out in a blaze of glory anyway, why not finish the job?”

  “She’s our engineer, for one, and we need her to tell us what’s what at the floodgate. We don’t have enough ammo to hold off the guns inside for more than an hour or so. Even if we did manage to muddle through, though, it’s Mangold. Without Nelle, he’s like a boat without a goddamned rudder. Second-guessing everything. When the power went out he was sure she’d been killed. When he agreed to take you, I thought maybe he’d come up with another plan. But now he’s back in his tent. Same as it was.”

  “I need to talk to him. Alone,” I say.

  “He doesn’t really accept visitors when he’s in one of his moods,” James says.

  “Well, he’s going to talk to me whether he likes it or not.”

  “Oh yeah? By the hands of you and what army?”

  “You and whoever else I can dig up. Hey, Linsey?”

  He looks at me for a minute and starts laughing. Linsey joins him and, soon, I do, too. The lines we’ve drawn between friend and enemy are so arbitrary, and so fragile. I accidentally grab James’s injured shoulder and he yelps like a hyena and we set off into yet more laughter. James pinches my arm in retribution, and Linsey pitches slimy potato skins at us from the fireside. It seems like years since I was laughing with Cas at my mother’s old clothes. And before that, there hadn’t been any laughter since the City.

  Mina, Agnes, and Doc, memories of Danny—my whole life in the City seems so distant, like it belongs to someone else. I wonder if my dad felt this distance to my mother and me when we left, and again after she died. And even though I finally understand it, I reject it entirely. I’ll keep the new along with the old, or die trying.

  Linsey has no problem colluding with me.

  “You don’t need to deliver dinner, love, just tell him you want to talk about Nelle.”

  And so I do. James follows me, still limping, begging me to try again in the morning.

  Paul is sitting in front of Mangold’s tent. “Figured you’d try something like this,” he says.

  Mangold’s tent is gigantic, the size of the ranch house’s living room and kitchen together. I stand in front of the vestibule that serves as the front door and announce myself. “New Charitan traitor whore here to see you.”

  Paul spits, and James flinches. “Mangold’s words, not mine,” I say.

  “Are you hard of hearing or just stupid? He’s not taking visitors.” Paul unsnaps the holster for his knife.

  “I’m here to talk about Nelle.”

  The tent flap whips open. Mangold stands there in a pair of socks and a fortuitously long button-down shirt. “What about Nelle?”

  Once inside, I take a deep breath and ask Mangold to sit down. He insists on making tea, of all things. He has a kettle rigged to a solar-powered hot plate, and though the tea is tepid, it’s a nice change from chicory. He explains how he makes his own tisanes by picking and drying what he finds in the forest. Mint and wild strawberry.

  “I’m sorry for what I said at the gate. I was angry, and sometimes . . . well, I have always struggled with my emotions, and when they took Nelle, I was beside myself.”

  “You and your men have assumed quite a bit about her confinement,” I snipe. But he doesn’t bite.

  “Where are they keeping her?”

  “She’s played her hand quite well so far. She’s staying at the Willis mansion, which is considerably more comfortable than the jail. Because of her friendship with Perry, they’ll make her useful in the near term. She’ll be turning the power back on, for one.”

  “How did the outage occur?”

  I ignore him. “Despite her competence, Nelle won’t be safe forever. After she restores the power, her usefulness declines precipitously. Did they give you a date for the exchange?”

  Mangold isn’t listening to me, either. “Our original plan was interrupted.”

  “James told me,” I said. Mangold frowns.

  “Thanks a lot,” James says.

  “And he said you knew about the Ward.”

  Mangold nods. “We have a friend inside the gates. He warned us of what we’d find.”

  I need to tell him that my dad is dead. But the words won’t form.

  “I owe the man a great debt of gratitude,” he continues. “I’m sure he’s doing whatever he can to keep Nelle safe.”

  I consider spilling Nelle’s complicity in her own position, but it isn’t my confession to make. Mangold isn’t going to hear those words unless they’re delivered by Nelle herself.

  “Our plan was to warn Cal during his next drop, so that he could get his brother out of New Charity before we went in. Nelle insisted on trying to warn Perry, and that ended up being our downfall. When the Bishop offered to send someone as insurance while they kept Nelle, naturally I asked for Cal. We got you instead.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “I assume it’s because you’re a danger to both sides.”

  I nod. “That’s a fair assessment.”

  “But who are you, really?” he asks. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Everyone’s. No one’s.” I’ve let this go on long enough without delivering the news I came to deliver. “The man who fought with Paul, do you know who he is?”

  “Sanctuary man, right? But not the important one.”

  “He’s the Deacon. Deacon Pious Turner.”

  He rolls the names around in his mouth for a moment before he brightens, then crumples. “Oh no. The brother. And he . . . damn. So where is Cal? Why send you? Who are you?”

  “Cal Turner died three weeks ago. I’m his daughter, Syd, given special dispensation to enter New Charity to receive his belongings.”

  Mangold shoves his cup aside and lays his head in his hands. “No, no, no, no,” he whispers. And I’m filled with a feeling I can’t put a name to, watching this man grieve for my dad in a way I couldn’t, haven’t, and won’t ever be able to.

  I expect him to gather himself, sit up, and speak to me. But he continues to sob until my tea is cold. Until I stand up and duck out of the tent, leaving him to his own staggering guilt.

  By nightfall, it is clear Mangold will not be joining the camp for the evening meeting. I’m sitting with James, Linsey, and a few others whose names I haven’t learned. Though Mangold’s in no shape to plan anything, Paul and James want me to explain to everyone else what I said to Mangold to put him in such a state.

  I start with the important part. “I’m Syd Turner, City Survivor, but New Charity born. More pertinently, I’m your friend Cal Turner’s daughter. You didn’t know about me. I didn’t know about you. In fact, I don’t know a lot about my dad. But the fact that he was trying to help the Survivors makes me very proud.”

  Linsey initiates a round of applause with his plate-sized hands.

  “Listen,” I say, deciding to go big or go home, “right this moment, Nelle is safe, unless she decides to disturb the floodgate Ward. And though it looks bad, we may actually be in a strategic position to resolve the issue of the reservoir without leveling New Charity in the process.”

  Paul and the men I don’t know groan in response.

  “Cal Turner is dead,” I say over them, and watch them stiffen. “And by avenging his death, we can remove the source of suffering for both communities, namely the Bishop.”

  “And just how do you propose we off the guy?” someone asks.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t know what you have in terms of weapons or resources. I’m hoping if we take a night to think and then reconvene tomorrow, we can come up with some ideas and together we can make a plan.”

  “You think you can just waltz in here and tell us what to do?” A tall blond man stands up and throws the dregs of his mug into the fire. “What kind of experience do you have? Screw you, sweetheart.”

  “I’ll do it!” someone yells from the back. My skin crawls.

  I take a deep breath. “I’m just explaining—”r />
  “Thanks, General Lipstick, but we’ll wait for Mangold to get right first,” says a short, bearded man.

  “We don’t have much time. Nelle doesn’t know that killing the Bishop will nullify the Ward. I didn’t have a chance to tell her before I left.”

  Feet shuffle, but they offer no acquiescence.

  “You listened to Nelle, didn’t you?”

  “’Cause she was speaking for Mangold,” Paul says.

  I roll my eyes. It was more likely the other way around, but Nelle is running virtually the same game inside the gates. Letting Perry feel as if he’s running the board, when she’s four moves ahead the whole time.

  James stands up. “Hey, any of you ever consider she knows what she’s talking about?”

  “Killing him takes more time,” Paul says. “The longer we’re inside the gates, the more risk we take. We have been over this a thousand times.”

  Linsey waves him off from the other side of the fire. “Two weeks ago you were all ready to give your lives. Now, just because this gal is giving you ideas, you won’t take risk? You lads think on it. We’ll have no more discussion of this over dinner.”

  We all sit, reluctantly. I put James between me and everyone else as the rest of the camp filters in. Linsey sits down across from me, delivering a plate of unsalted meat and root vegetables. It all tastes of the earth and, though it’s different from the tuna I’ve been scarfing down and the sticky-sweet baked goods of New Charity, I like it. I feel stronger. And maybe it’s because, for the first time, my vision seems clear.

  Agnes worried the two sides would create a rift neither of us could fathom. I understand now—each side has the power to eradicate the other.

  Unless we get rid of the Bishop.

  So, that’s what I’ll do—with or without the camp’s help. If it costs my life, then, just as Nelle and the camp’s men argued, my last moments will be the gift I leave for the homes I love.

  “What are you smiling about?” James asks.

  “I know what I need to do, that’s all,” I say.

  “That’s a great feeling, isn’t it? Savor it, Syd Turner.” He throws his good arm around me and hugs me to him.

  “I will, thanks.” I move to squeeze him back, but then remember his injuries. I give him a kiss on the cheek, caught up in the moment. Glad to have a friend here in this strange place between my two homes.

  A giant crack booms from the woods behind us. The air changes in an instant. Paul and James pull wooden whistles from beneath their shirts and begin to blow them.

  “Get down,” James says, just before Paul runs past, lifting me from the bench and planting my face in the ground. I readjust and watch as Linsey takes a shotgun from behind a food chest and begins loading.

  “Don’t you want to see who it is?” I ask, as the guns start to fire around me. “The ammo,” I protest. “For the Bishop.”

  I press my cheek into the loam and curse. My words disappear in the noise and smoke of people who’ve already lost one of their leaders, one physically and the other mentally, and aren’t taking any more chances.

  I hope whatever or whoever is out there has run far and fast.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Cas

  I stayed on my knees a good long time after the gate closed behind Syd, and the Governor took his leave. Troy and Len fought in a low, bitter hush, and eventually Troy stomped off, leaving Len to tend to me. I staggered to my feet, devoid of emotion. The noonday wind came up and blew grit into our eyes as we walked in silence to the Acolyte apartments.

  Inside, Len made some chamomile tea with honey, and swaddled me into the corner of the couch with a blanket. He hovered between me and the window, where he could see they’d taken the Deacon into the Sheriff’s office.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said, “but I should check on him, okay?”

  I made myself nod.

  He continued to chatter, as if holding up the conversation for both of us. “I’ll get some things for you from the house in the morning. Maybe I can board Windy at the Sheriff’s stables so she’ll be closer to you. You have some clothes here, right? But you’ll need more. Later you can make me a list.”

  I wanted to tell him I was fine, but I couldn’t make words come out. Gruesome visions swarmed beneath my eyelids, daring me to sleep—future scenes at the gate punctuated by a thousand hazy endings. The Deacon going after the Governor, calling sound from the sky until both their ears bled. The Deacon locked up, feverish and suffering in the corner of a stone cell. The Deacon disappearing in a puff of smoke. Syd in a silver cape striding up to his cell bars to free him, riding away together on a shining white Turner stallion.

  When the door shut behind Len, I stood up from the couch and made my way to the front window to watch for him to cross the street. Sheriff Jayne intercepted him, and sent him away. He put his hat back on, looked up, but then kept walking. Even as my heart fell, I couldn’t blame him for not coming back. I didn’t want to be alone with me, either.

  I let myself into his room and rooted around his closet until I found a flask of whiskey. I took one and dumped it into my tea along with some more honey. It tasted awful, but eventually did the trick.

  An hour later and almost numb, I closed my eyes. One and only one image played out on the backs of my eyelids: Syd’s crestfallen face, waiting all these long years for any man’s love to follow her out the gates of New Charity.

  I woke hours later, my head muzzy but devoid of clamoring visions, and the sun was just beginning to set. It was the longest day I could remember. How much longer would it be for Syd? Would she be warm enough? What if they were starving her? Beating her? What if Syd were here? She’d tell me to stop.

  I sat up. If the situation were reversed, she’d get answers.

  And so would I.

  I had to find a way to get into my father’s office to recover the gun, but for that I’d need Len’s help. Which I’d ask for, once he’d made his own peace with the day. To make sure Syd was okay, I only needed Windy.

  I slipped on a pair of jeans and a dark, long-sleeved shirt. I washed the traces of makeup off my face from the party the night before and pushed my bright hair under one of Len’s black caps. It was a risk going back to our barn, but I hoped my family would be occupied with dinner or fighting or drinking or, even better, all three.

  A month ago, I’d have guessed Len would have been the first to fall out of my father’s graces, but I kept forgetting Len and I weren’t quite equal, he being born with an advantage I’d never had. In fact, all my brothers’ manhoods seemed to excuse them of crimes far greater than questioning the Governor’s authority.

  The evening was still, and the few folks I did run into seemed unsuspicious, involved in their own errands. In my dark uniform in the oncoming twilight, I was less recognizable than usual. When I walked past the mercantile, Bill didn’t even look up from the counter. I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  I skirted the hillside, approaching our house and the barn alongside from the back of the property. Nothing but the horses stirred in the slow, orange light of the lingering sun.

  Windy stuck her head from the open half of the split stall door, ears swiveling toward me as I whistled softly. I undid the sliding lock and let myself into her stall, and again into the main barn itself. Perhaps my father would have me arrested for stealing horse and tack, but I had a hard time imagining Sheriff Jayne cooperating with the charge. At least after today.

  In the tack room, I grabbed my saddle and bridle, as well as a currycomb and brush, though I didn’t want to take the time to do much more than a cursory prep for the saddle. I’d have time to do a better job once things settled down.

  I hadn’t tried the lights. Even though they were hooked up to the mansion’s generator, I’d hoped to avoid attracting anyone’s attention. When the overhead fixtures above the stalls flipped on, I jumped and so did Windy. Crouching to the floor, I prayed it would be Len.

 
“Figured as much,” Troy said, peering over the stall door.

  I stood and crossed behind Windy, currying her other side with more vigor.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “She’s using you, Cas, just like she did me. You just don’t see it.”

  “I’m not going anywhere you want to go.” I set the brushes in a feed bucket hanging on the wall and shook out my saddle blanket.

  “You sound funny. Have you been drinking or something?” He brushed at his ears.

  “Didn’t you see the way she looked at you when she left? What did she ever do to you to deserve to be treated that way? Did she reject you? Did she leave you? Did she dump you?”

  He watched my mouth, but continued without seeming to hear me. “She promised she wouldn’t leave without telling me. When we got to her house, she had a gun and a backpack. The Governor was right—it’s been one lie after another. I’m not waiting around for her to leave again, Cas. She doesn’t want me. Never did.”

  “And you know this how? Because the Governor said so?” I lifted the saddle over Windy’s back and pulled the girth from over the top of the pommel. “The gun was her father’s. You don’t know what she was planning, and you never asked. You dismissed her so easily.”

  “I remember when you said it. That I shouldn’t go after her,” Troy said, shaking his head. “This morning, the Governor said she’d be trying to run just as soon as she made another attempt on the Bishop’s life.”

  “What do you mean, ‘another attempt’?”

  He laughed darkly. “Last night she said he attacked her, and she pulled a knife on him. Said it was self-defense.”

  Beneath my sleeves, the scabs on my arms burned from the glass the Bishop had thrown me into. “I believe her.”

  “Are you hearing me?” he asked. Anger and anguish plastered his mouth. “She was packed to leave and carrying a gun. That’s not an accident, Cas. It’s premeditation.”

  I knew he couldn’t hear me. My words were just sound, and I was starting to get careless with them. “You should have just talked to her, you idiot.”