by Maggie Ray
“Of course,” I say, and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. “I’ll be here.”
I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that promise. I’m sure an excuse can be made, when the time comes. Either way, it doesn’t matter, because Rory is already gone. That thing sleeping in her bed, it’s not her. I’m sure she’d understand, if I chose not to watch her body meet its end.
The body doesn’t make the person. Rory was so much more.
∆∆∆
I manage to make it back outside, although I don’t know how. The air feels cold and unkind. I’ve started to shake, which means I need to get out of sight quickly. I'm unraveling. I miss a step on the stairs and Alexei catches me just in time.
I press into him for support. He plays the part of protector now, and not just for pretend. All at once, he's become an ally in my tangled web of secrets. Maybe because it’s easy to make friends with inanimate objects. Like a doll you dress up in the appropriate clothes—a suit of armor for a knight—a role to play.
“It’s okay,” he says, his voice both patient and urgent. “It’s okay, you did it. But you need to get in the car now.”
The remaining steps are a blur. I crawl onto the seat, and Alexei shuts the door. He climbs in from the other side and orders the car to take us home.
“We’ll pretend this never happened,” I say, looking out the window at Rory’s house, watching it shrink in the distance as we drive off.
“Okay,” he says.
I have no tears. I feel like there should be tears, but there aren’t. My mind blinks in and out, trying to make sense of this. I can't remember what feelings are supposed to feel like.
“I don't know what I expected to find,” I speak to the car—to anyone who’ll listen.
Of course, Alexei is the only one here. He knows my secret, I remind myself. He knows I'm not cured, which means I don’t have to be so careful around him. The idea thrills me. I want to dump all my feelings and non-feelings into his lap and see how he handles it. I want to challenge him with my uncuredness, like a game of dare. A dangerous one.
I laugh in the face of danger. I don't care anymore. Rory is gone. Everyone I care about leaves me.
The curse prevails.
“You were right to keep me away,” I speak slowly, each word brought forward with physical effort.
“I'm sorry you had to see that,” he says, “but I wanted you to understand the risks, to understand why it’s important you hide being uncured, not just for the sake of yourself.”
I nod. “You were right. I see that now. You were just trying to look after me.”
Alexei barely moves, his face like stone. “I try.”
“It's your job,” I say.
He nods his head, the blond hair shiny like metal. Gold.
I’m jealous. I’m not made of gold, I’m made of nothingness. The nothing, it sinks beneath my skin, settling into the crevices of my existence. I am the invisible one—the forgettable one—the cursed one.
I am nothing now.
12
In the morning, I don’t move. Alexei comes to my bedside. “If you don’t go to work, it’ll look bad,” he says.
He wants me to be careful, but I can’t listen to him right now. Careful is a language I no longer understand. Instead, there’s a rushing in my head. My thoughts have become static.
He brings me soup and medicine. “It’s just for show. We’ll pretend you’ve got a cold. It should buy you a couple days.”
I just stare at the wall. The whiteness and flatness of it. I wish I could be that: a wall. A solid instead of air. My body floats, my words are fumes.
Alexei leaves, but he keeps coming back. Every time I hear the door, I roll away and pull the covers over my head.
After three days of this, he insists I go to work. “I can’t cover for you any longer.”
Because I believe him—because I trust him, a concept that is entirely new and frightening, but I have no one left to trust—I get up. I take a shower. I get dressed. I move fast through the motions, relying on the speed to get me through.
At work, Rory’s desk has been removed. It seems a bit drastic, to have it removed completely. They could have used it or hired someone new to replace her.
“How was it?” Alexei asks, later, during the drive home at the end of the day.
He’s taken the habit of checking, as if I’m a ticking time bomb. I kind of feel like one.
“Fine,” I say. I’ve been practicing that word, rehearsing it in my head, so I can get the tone of voice right. “They took away Rory’s desk.”
“I know. I asked them to.”
I look at him. “How’d you manage that?”
“I asked if they had any spare desks they could donate to the curing efforts.”
The words just hang there between us. Finally, I manage to say, “Thank you.”
We say nothing else after that. I find talking exhausting, these days. I’ve become quieter. The quietness is something I’m good at, but I can’t help wondering: Is this what it means to be sick? Is this what it was like for my mother, for my sister?
∆∆∆
Being invisible used to be a curse. Now, it’s a blessing, making it easy to hide in plain sight. I float from one day to the next, and I know there’s something wrong. Something has become disconnected inside. But no one else notices, which seems ridiculous. How can they not see it?
Sometimes, I sit at my desk at work and think: what would happen if I just started screaming right now? If I just started to scream and never stopped? It’s actually an effort, holding it back.
Is this what it was like for Sara? Did she feel like this all the time and that’s why she took the pills?
I never understood the sickness. How could people give up on themselves? How could my mother give up on me and Sara? I still have pictures from when we were little. Mother would hold our hands, a twin on each side. Then our stepfather came into our lives, and we seem normal in the pictures, a complete family.
I used to stare at those pictures for hours, trying to make sense of what became of us.
Now, I feel like I know a little bit. I’ve tasted that darkness, and I’m starting to see how it blocks everything else out.
I keep waiting for Alexei to turn me in, I kind of hope he would, but he doesn’t.
My stepfather is trickier. He definitely notices my behaviour, although he doesn’t comment on it. We drift around each other like ships passing in the night, since we both work long hours and don’t often see each other. It’s always been this way between us, but it’s worse now. Even when he’s here, he’s not the same.
The isolation is the worst part. Even Alexei, who is showing me mercy against all odds, doesn’t fully understand what it means to be uncured. He listens and tries to help, but he can’t know what it’s like.
I feel like a freak. Like I’m the only one this has happened to.
Until I’m not.
13
It’s raining that night. Colder than usual. Darker. My stepfather is working late at the library, Alexei has left to pick him up. From the living room window, I watch the car pull out of the driveway, the rear lights disappearing into the night.
Barely two minutes pass before I hear the knocking.
At first, I’m not sure it’s real. Maybe a trick with the wind, a tree tapping a window, or the rain puttering loudly on the metal roof. Another knock, and that’s when I realize it’s coming from the back door, through the kitchen. I pad across the floor in my socks and peek around the corner, my heart stuttering.
The timing is too perfect. Whoever is out there has specifically waited for Alexei to leave.
Through the glass doors, I recognize the silhouette and my heart beats faster. Why is he here, an hour passed curfew?
I don’t turn on the lights, afraid of being seen by the neighbors. I grab the smart-glass tablet from the kitchen counter and disarm the house security system, before creeping closer, drawn to the forbidden
. The glass door slides open too easily, considering all the rules being broken.
George stands tall, dressed in head to toe black, soaking wet from the rain. He ducks inside, and then towers above me, dripping onto my floor mat.
We assess each other, bearing witness to our crimes: Him, showing up here like this. Me, opening the door. It seems ridiculous that such simple things could become so dangerous.
Finally, he speaks, “I knew it.”
I only stare at him in disbelief.
“I knew it, that day you chased me down the street, that you were one of us.” He reaches for my hand, clasping it urgently. “I couldn’t say anything, there were too many people around, but I knew. That's why I sent Josie with the note.”
I struggle to keep up with what he’s saying, too distracted by the feel of his hand in mine, big and warm and strong. He’s gazing at me so intently, I feel breathless—weightless.
Until I come crashing back to reality.
It’s wrong of me—how can I care about such a thing while Rory is dying in her bed at home?
I snatch my hand back. “How did you make it here without getting caught? It’s dangerous, showing up like this.”
He doesn’t listen to a word. “Sabine, there are others. Uncured people, like you and me. You can come meet them.”
What he’s saying should mean everything to me. This means I’m not alone.
Instead, what I say is, “I can’t. Alexei will be back soon.”
As soon as the words have left my mouth, I’m hit by a stab of guilt. Like I’ve betrayed him in some way.
George looks shocked—I’ve spoken the peacekeeper’s name, a thing nobody does because it makes them seem like one of us—but he recovers, apparently choosing to overlook my slip-up.
“Not right now. Later tonight, we’re having a meeting.” He grabs the tablet that’s still sitting within reach. “You should be able to access your home security on this thing. Do you know how to erase any history of activity?”
I nod. I work for Onyx. I know how to tamper with security systems.
“As long as you’re careful, you should be fine.” He puts the tablet back, and reaches into his pocket, producing a wrinkled piece of paper with an address and a time scrawled on it. “Meet me here.”
He forces the paper into my hand, and I hold onto it, mostly out of confusion, staring at the letters and numbers as though trying to decipher their meaning. They seem so innocent on their own like this, incapable of being dangerous.
The handwriting is exactly like the first note.
George steps back into the rain, a smile splitting his handsome face. “I’ll see you later then?”
He looks so hopeful; my heart nearly shatters. “Okay.”
There’s no time to regret it. In the next instance, he’s gone again.
∆∆∆
Nightfall makes everything worse. Noises are louder, the dark is deeper. I went to bed dressed to go out, wearing my darkest layers of clothing, and I hid a pair of shoes in the closet.
I carry the shoes into the kitchen. I’m about to disarm the security system, I’ve got the tablet in my hands, all smooth glass beneath my fingertips, when behind me, there’s a sound. I suck in a sharp breath, and at first, I think I’m being paranoid, but then I hear it again.
A pair of tired feet slide across the floors, socks on hardwood, coming this way.
I abandon the tablet and back away quickly, tucking myself against a wall, out of sight. I clutch the shoes tightly to my chest, and tiptoe carefully towards the pantry, so I'm not out in plain view.
Is he really coming in here? Am I really that unlucky?
I am.
My stepfather comes around the corner, yawning hugely, eyes closed.
There’s a sliver of space between the pantry and the fridge, and I squeeze myself in at the last second, holding my breath. In the dark, my stepfather shuffles to the other end of the kitchen, his back to me. I press a hand over my mouth, to muffle the sound of my breathing.
If he catches me here, I don’t know what I’ll do or how I’ll ever explain it.
He has an empty drinking glass in his hand, and he stops at the sink, yawning again. That loud, old-man yawn. Like a public announcement for how tired he is. Then there's the tap water running. It just keeps on running, for too long it seems like.
I notice his shoulders drooping, and strands of hair shining silver even in the dark, and I’m shocked by how old he looks. When did that happen? We’ve never had a close relationship, and I always blamed him for that—blamed him for choosing Sara to be his favorite. I always assumed he regretted being stuck with me, in the end. Stuck with the cursed girl. But maybe that was unfair. Maybe, if I tried a little harder, I could take care of him the way he’s taken care of me. He looks like he needs it.
Finally, the tap stops running, and I feel a pang of sadness watching him retreat to his room with his glass of water, all alone. What would he do, if he ever found out I wasn’t cured? I’d hate to disappoint him—hate to burden him even more.
I wait until I hear the sound of his bedroom door, down the hall, shutting softly. Then I exhale a breath of relief.
It’s a long time before I leave my hiding spot—before I know it’s safe. I remain frozen, squished between fridge and pantry, my head buzzing with doubts. Should I just go back to my room, slide back under the covers? It would be so much easier.
Then I think of George, and before I know it, the tablet is in my hands again and I’m disarming the security system. I’ll delete the evidence later, when I return.
I pull the hood of my sweater over my head as I reach the door. The rain outside has turned to a mist, coating everything. I put on the shoes, making sure to be quiet about it. In my pocket, I have the slip of paper. If I leave now, I should make it, as long as I don’t get caught.
I slide the door open and closed as gently as I can, and then that’s it. The easy part is over.
I feel a shift in the universe the moment my foot leaves the back porch and touches the grass. Quickly, I cross people’s backyards, keeping my eyes peeled for any patrolling peacekeepers. I feel like a criminal—a sneak. Even though I’m hardly doing anything outrageous.
I find myself holding my breath most of the way, until I find the right house. It sits on a corner, behind a big hedge. The outside is blue steel, and I realize I’m starting to feel torn about this color. What does it really represent? The sky, the healer’s outfits, Alexei’s eyes?
Despite being such an offensive shade, the house looks small and unthreatening, the windows all dark, like everyone inside is asleep. I worry I’ve made a mistake. What if it’s the wrong house? What if I’ve misinterpreted the handwriting on the page? Or, even worse, what if this is a trap?
I only walk up to the back door because I figure it’s too late. I’ve already done this, I’ve come here. If they mean to catch me in the act, they will. I’m too far from home now.
I knock three times, as instructed on the paper.
The door opens a crack, and a voice rises softly from within. “Name?”
“Sabine LeRoux,” I whisper.
The door opens, and nothing but darkness awaits. I’m careful about where to step, not wanting to bump into anything. The door shuts the second I’m in, and a shadow of a person stands to the side. They gesture to a flight of stairs that descend into the basement.
All over again, I’m terrified that this is a horrible, horrible trap. But I go down anyway.
14
There’s another door at the bottom of the stairs, only I don’t knock this time. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to, but I don’t.
As soon as I step inside, I get the impression I’ve done the wrong thing. A staggering number of eyes turn to glare, stabbing me with accusations. A handful of people stand huddled around a table with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling above, casting jagged shadows across every surface.
It feels like an interrogation room. Cold, clean, sterile.
A young man with long hair—dark blonde, almost long enough to touch his shoulders—sits at the head of the table, smoking a cigarette. His eyes are thin as slits and they brush over every inch of me. The cigarette is the most shocking piece, because they’re banned. They’re the sort of thing sick people smuggle amongst themselves—a health hazard, an illogical habit—the sort of thing that could get you arrested on the spot.
I freeze, unsure of what to do. I’m an intruder, and I’ve never felt less invisible in my life. My skin crawls. I desperately scan the faces for a familiar one, but there are none, and I suddenly regret coming here with every fiber of my being.
What was I thinking?
At the same time that I ask myself the question, I know the answer. I was thinking of George. That’s why I’ve come. All I cared about was that George had asked me, George had held my hand, George would be here.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the room, only because I don’t know what else to do.
The apology isn’t welcomed. They shoot daggers with their eyes.
“Is your name on the list?” someone asks.
I nod, unable to find my voice. This makes me seem more suspicious, apparently. One person frowns, another crosses their arms over their chest. I’m being evaluated, studied, picked apart. They are considering whether or not I should be permitted entry into their secret world of rebels. Perhaps they will ask me to take a test, to prove my worthiness by doing something dangerous and insane. I dread finding out.
Finally, I manage to say something that isn’t completely stupid. “George asked me to come.”
The explanation is met with better reactions. The room appears to relax, although they still don’t seem too impressed, like I’ve alarmed them needlessly.
“Is he here?” I ask.
“Not yet,” a brunette girl says, sidling closer now I’ve proven not to be a threat. “He should be here soon, though.”