The Great Unknowable End

by Kathryn Ormsbee

  Galliard

  MONDAY, AUGUST 1

  “Hey! Ow,” says Archer.

  I cover my mouth and cough.

  “What are you doing?” the girl repeats. She’s barely more than a shadow, but I can feel her extremely solid anger from where I sit.

  “There are families here,” she says. “Little kids. This isn’t the place.”

  “Oh! We are ever so aware, love.”

  Archer is putting on this bizarre accent, his vowels mixed together. He sounds a lot like Rowan Gentry, a member of Red Sun who’s originally from Manchester, England. I know he’s talking that way on purpose, too, because the two of us only lit up a few seconds ago.

  The girl steps closer, and like magic, my waving tic kicks into gear. My left hand sweeps across the air in a tight arc.

  “Leave,” she tells us. “I work here, and you’re on drive-in property. Leave.”

  “We’re here for the show, same as everyone else,” says Archer. “This is our preshow treat. Which you’re ruining.”

  “Maybe you’re ruining everyone else’s preshow. Ever think of that?” Then she asks, “Did you even buy tickets?”

  “Of course we did. What do you take us for? But we’re sitting back here specifically so we won’t bother anyone. You’re the one coming out to us, love.”

  “Why’re you calling me that? What makes you think you can call me ‘love’?”

  I wave again. The girl whips her focus onto me.

  Damn.

  “What is your problem? You have my attention. What?”

  “Nothing,” I say, waving.

  “You think that’s funny?”

  “Hey,” says Archer, dropping the accent and the joint we’ve been sharing. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  The girl takes a step closer. “You’re from the commune, aren’t you?”

  “Why would you think that?” asks Archer.

  “Because you’re wearing those.” She points at our white linen tunics and jeans. It’s standard dress for most Red Sun members. “I’m sure the police would love to hear about this. I know how fond they are of you people.”

  “Hey now! No need to play dirty.”

  Archer finally sounds kind of worried. I guess I should be worried too, only I’m hung up on my waving tic and how I’ve accidentally made this girl mad at me. I told Archer this was a bad idea, smoking this close to a public place; especially after that police search, we should be playing it safe. Archer wasn’t having it, though. He went on about how this was my first night, and it had to be done right, and the best way to see my first movie was under the influence of locally grown weed. Though not grown in the commune, of course. Archer scored this off some town friend of his, using a good chunk of his Crossing allowance. I’ve smoked with him before, on the commune outskirts, near the wheat crop. Archer managed to sneak the weed past Charlie by employing a method he claimed left him shitting funny for days. Back then, I felt this constant jab of paranoia, afraid that at any moment one of the adults would come through and catch us, so I understand the appeal of smoking out here, in the open.

  Or at least I did. Until now. Until the girl.

  “I won’t have to play dirty if you move,” she’s saying. “Move, okay? Please.”

  Please. Something about that word—civility tacked onto the curtness—makes me laugh. Archer rams his elbow into my side. Then he rustles, pulling something from his backpack. There’s a clicking sound, and light bursts around us. Archer is shining a flashlight directly at the girl.

  She doesn’t shout or throw her arms in front of her eyes. She doesn’t cuss; I can tell she’s not the type, because she’s already had plenty of reasons to cuss at us before now. She stays where she is and says, “You won’t intimidate me.”

  I guess I’m supposed to be annoyed. A little threatened, maybe. Instead I’m fascinated, because I finally see the girl. Her nose is snub. Her eyes are dark and large, her eyebrows darker and larger. Her jaw is weak. Her lips are thick. It’s not a pretty face, but it’s plenty fascinating.

  It’s also familiar.

  “All right.” Archer says, getting to his feet. “It’s not worth it. Come on.”

  I stay where I am, though, staring at the girl. Her brown, frizzy hair is shooting straight up in the wind.

  “Hey,” I say. “I know you.”

  She takes a step back, looking uncertain. “No, you don’t.”

  I wave, my hand arcing high over my head. “No, I do. I know you. Stella. You’re Stella Kay.”

  The girl’s big eyes get bigger.

  “Come on.” Archer grabs hold of my arm mid-wave and, using the leverage, pulls me to my feet. My knees are stiff, popping as he drags me away from the lights of the drive-in. Away from the ghostly girl.

  I do know her. It’s her, I’m sure.

  “Being a creep may not have been the best strategy,” says Archer once we’re on a narrow dirt path that cuts through two cornfields. His flashlight beam catches on dark green stalks and passing gnats. Around us there’s a constant, low murmur of wind pressing into the crops.

  I’m no longer waving. Instead, I’m blinking—rapid squeezes, open, shut, open, shut.

  “I wasn’t trying to creep her out.”

  “ ‘I know you’? Only murderers and predators say shit like that.”

  “I do know her, though,” I say, blinking.

  “Sweet baby Jesus, Galliard, how could you possibly know her? This is your first time on the Outside.”

  “I know her.”

  “Okay, man, now you’re creeping me out.”

  “Didn’t she look familiar to you?”

  “No, she did not. Granted, I was less focused on her face and more worried about the threats. If she’d reported us to the police, do you know what the Council would do? What Rod would do? Possession of marijuana, watching a movie without paying? I bet Rod’s dying for a good reason to shut down Crossing, same as he did all the imports. No way we’re going to give him that.”

  I don’t bring up how Archer was the one to suggest both the weed and the “free” seats on the edge of the field. He knows. We walk in silence, through cornstalks taller than us, and my blinking continues, minute after minute. We’re not taking the route we came by, but I trust that Archer knows where he’s going.

  “Ruin a perfectly good evening,” he mutters, as though he’s been talking this whole time and is now reaching a conclusion. “Perfectly good joint, too.”

  “She’s Phoenix’s sister,” I say.

  Archer stops walking. He turns, shining his flashlight in my face. “Phoenix said his family was dead.”

  “Yeah. He told me that too.”

  “Then how is that his sister?”

  I tic—five fast blinks in a row. “It just is.”

  Archer hacks out a frustrated laugh. “How do you know?”

  “The painting. It was over my dresser in Sage House, and now it’s over my desk in our new room. It used to be his, and I would stare at it all the time, because the face was strange. Phoenix said it was his sister, remember? And then later he gave it to me because he said he didn’t want to be reminded of her. Remember that?”

  “The painting over your desk? The funky blue one?”

  “It’s Phoenix’s sister.”

  “That girl didn’t look anything like your painting.”

  Through several blinks, I say, “Yeah, she did.”

  “Listen, Galliard. I’ve seen that god-awful picture every day for more than a year, and I didn’t recognize her.”

  “You saw it,” I say. “You didn’t look at it.”

  “You are such an ass.”

  Archer starts back up. I keep pace, still ticking.

  “I only mean, it’s hard to forget a face like that. It’s so . . . weird.”

  “You should go back and tell her that. Girls love to hear how weird their faces are.”

  I’m grateful for the cool wind on my hot skin. “What I mean is—”

  “
Really. Go on back. I’m sure she’ll find you irresistible once she knows you’ve jacked off to her picture for over a year.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “Never mind. Let’s focus on the real question, which is, If that’s Phoenix’s sister . . . well then, what the hell?”

  Well then, what the hell indeed.

  I could tell Archer everything. Right about now would be the time. I could tell him that Phoenix’s family might be dead to him, but they’re alive and well right here in Slater, Kansas. I could tell him I’ve been writing to Phoenix’s sister for almost two years. But that would mean telling him everything, like how I’ve been lying about my identity and intercepting Phoenix’s mail and defying the Council’s rule that there can be no correspondence between Red Sun residents and their family members on the Outside. And I can’t go that far. It’s too messy. He wouldn’t get it.

  “Maybe he was wrong,” I say, before stretching my lips as wide as they will go. “Maybe she got kidnapped or ran away, and he assumed she was dead.”

  “And now she’s hanging around the Dreamlight, of all places, for kicks.”

  “Maybe.” I don’t know why I’m even trying.

  “Okay,” says Archer. “What’s more likely? That Phoenix’s sister comes back from the dead or . . . that the same Phoenix who stole your job is the Phoenix who tells big, fat lies?”

  I open my mouth in another unyawn. I don’t respond. I’m kind of pissed. I’m also amused. Because how funny is it that I’ve broken my three-year vow and left Red Sun in order to forget Phoenix, only to find him on the Outside, too?

  It’s all so ironically hilarious.

  Archer says, “I know what this is about.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Come on. He’s your hero. You’ve worshipped him ever since he showed up. Maybe you weren’t in love with him like everyone else, but you worshipped him. He’s a god to you, same as one of your dead musicians. And now he’s fallen out of the sky.”

  I wait for an unyawn to pass before I say, “That’s not what’s going on.”

  “Sure, man. Keep telling yourself that.”

  “It’s not.”

  It is, though. Archer’s right. I always liked my life at Red Sun, but Phoenix gave me a reason to be proud of it. There he was, this older guy with good looks and a smooth attitude, born and raised on the Outside, saying he envied me. He made me feel as cool as he was, and in return I revered him almost as much as I did Janis, Jimi, and Buddy. He was like them in so many ways—a rebel and an artist, determined to shine bright.

  And the best part? He convinced me that I could be like my gods too. Phoenix was the first person I played an original song for, on the Common House Yamaha. He told me my work was genius, that I was going to make something out of myself. He said there was no one on the Outside writing the kind of songs I was. And he followed through, too. He met up with me countless nights in Common House, listening to my compositions, giving me feedback, applauding, an audience of one.

  Now every memory I have of those private concerts coats my stomach with acid. It’d be one thing if I didn’t know the guy and he’d stolen my spot. But Phoenix knew me well. He knew my music better than anyone else in this commune. He told me I could be resident artist.

  He didn’t just steal; he betrayed me.

  I’m not going to say that to Archer, though. I’m not going to breathe a word. In fact I’m about to reiterate one more time how mistaken he is, when Archer throws out a hand in front of me.

  “Oh, whoa. Wait. Hang on, wait. Look.”

  All this time, we’ve been walking through farmland, flanked on both sides by dense rows of corn. But here the corn comes to an end. Before us, prairie sand reed spills out in rippling waves.

  Red Sun is hedged in by a fence and barns and wooden buildings. Everything there is lines and borders. Nothing sprawls there. Not like here, where the grass forms a sea, and the sea is telling me to dive in.

  “Do you see them?”

  I’m about to ask Archer what he means, but then I do see: a light, small and yellow as a corn kernel. It flickers on for a second, then fades to black. My vision adjusts, and as it does I see more lights, turning on and off in a scattered, syncopated rhythm.

  When I was little, I learned that fireflies don’t live everywhere. There are people farther north and west who have never seen a firefly in their lives.

  “That’s why we are very blessed at Red Sun,” said Melly, our early elementary teacher. “Every summer, the fireflies come out and shine for us. Not everyone is as fortunate as we are, to live in a place where we can experience the joys of nature and want for nothing.”

  I believed Melly. I thought she was telling the truth. I was five—why wouldn’t I? Even now, I guess I believe her; I am fortunate to live at Red Sun. But the thing is, when Melly told us that not everyone could see fireflies, I assumed she was talking about everyone on the Outside.

  But this is the Outside. I’m standing on the Outside, where I’ve never seen this much sand reed and this many fireflies in my life. The unruly wind sweeps over the plain, pushing into the long grass with far-reaching fingers. I shiver, but it’s a good kind of cold.

  “I told you,” says Archer, who sounds unusually reverent. “There are some almighty views out here.”

  “You weren’t joking.”

  Because up until now, I thought he was—joking, exaggerating, lying about the Outside. It couldn’t have been as vast and good as Archer and the other crossers made it out to be.

  This is vast, though. And good. No lie.

  Which means Phoenix has been the liar all along.

  December 2, 1975

  Stella,

  I wish there was a way to read Sagan in here. No one's censoring your letters, though, so you can keep sending me the good things he says and the discoveries happening. I think it's interesting.

  I've been thinking about aliens, though maybe not in the way you do.

  I've been thinking about outsiders. People we don't understand, people who don't understand us. People who are different, with different beliefs and ways of looking at the universe. I know you're intrigued by the idea of extraterrestrial life, but isn't it overwhelming enough thinking about plain old terrestrial life? People who don't look and think and act the way we do. They're all on this planet, but I don't hear about us sending golden plaques to each other or trying to help each other out.

  I guess what I'm getting at is, why do we think it'd be any better with aliens from other planets? Even if they're the nicest in the world and want to help us, do you think we'd let them? I think we'd shoot them down. I think we'd nuke them or run experiments. Why not? It's what we do to each other.

  I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything. But I've got a different theory: If these aliens are smart, they'll keep their spaceships far away from the human race. If they're smart and kind, maybe they'll help us out from a distance, so we'll never know it was them. I don't think they'll want to meet us, though. If they know what's best for them, they'll steer clear.

  Phoenix

  8

  Stella

  MONDAY, AUGUST 1

  Until I came across the Red Sun boys, I was preoccupied with a sufficiently long list of concerns:

  My project.

  My two jobs.

  My sister’s well-being.

  My brother’s radio silence.

  It is, I think, the last item that accounts for my actions tonight. I am fairly certain I wouldn’t have called the boys out on another evening, when my mind was calmer and tolerance higher. Something about the sweet scent and low laughter and the sheer arrogance of lighting up near such a public place—they tipped me toward confrontation.

  Then, to make matters worse, I saw their clothes.

  Like all Slater residents, I know about Crossing. Red Sun is already prime fodder for jokes at Slater High, but Crossing is an open season of salacious remarks. Chris Kennish swore up and down that he was going to score wit
h three Red Sun girls this summer. Leslie White claimed the guys were uncircumcised virgins and she had proof. Norm O’Brien said they were sex-crazed hippies who took part in daily orgies and other forms of free love. A rumor circulated school hallways that the residents wore long hair because they did not believe in gender. These were unoriginal offerings I did not take part in, not only because they were unoriginal, but also because they were much too close to home.

  More than two years ago, Craig left us for Red Sun. Unlike my mother, he did not give an explanation. He only wrote where he had gone and that we were not to contact him. The day before that, unbeknownst to us, he’d sold the car he had saved for and bought his junior year. Then he collected a few belongings—clothes and his best paintings—and he left.

  One day Craig lived in the bedroom across from me. He drove me to school activities and shared new music with me and occasionally fixed me French toast on Saturday mornings. He was an accomplished artist and a star basketball player. He had received a small academic scholarship to attend the University of Kansas. He was going to study business. He was Craig the Strong, the Steady, the Unchanging.

  The next day, he was gone.

  None of us Mercers have seen Craig since. My father refused to pursue the issue. Craig was eighteen when he left. He was his own person, said my dad. He could make his own decisions.

  I was too angry to do anything at first. Then, after two weeks of silent seething, I wrote my brother.

  It was a bad letter. Each line bled with hurt and vitriol. I called him the most selfish person alive. I demanded he explain himself. I demanded he write back. He met one of the demands. It took him a month, but he wrote back on five sheets of folded paper, typed. He did not explain why he left. He said he was happy, and that was enough.

  I wrote him back. I was still angry, and I still blamed him. It was clear, though, that unless I wished to bike out to Red Sun and scream for Craig to show himself—something I was not near brave enough to do—this was all I had left of my brother. And I needed my brother. I really needed him. That’s why I kept on writing. And, to my cautious delight, he wrote back. We began to talk about books and music and ideas—topics we hadn’t discussed much before his departure. He shared thoughts I never imagined were churning in his mind, and, as months passed, I felt that at last Craig saw me as more than his little sister; he saw me as someone whose opinion mattered. Before, Craig had been my big brother—the one who yelled at my school bullies, who fixed my broken roller skates, who taught me how to tie my first pair of laced shoes. Before, Craig was the one to fix me and Jill our dinners, the one to remind Dad that I was a growing kid and needed a new pair of jeans. On the day that Marci Dougan told me she’d found a best friend to replace me, Craig held me as I wept, and he told me that Marci didn’t know a good thing and, anyway, she had an obnoxious laugh.