by Abe Moss
“And what made any of the others come to trust you?”
“Eventually everyone recognizes their lack of options. I hate sounding like a broken record, but it’s true what I’ve said before. If not here, you wouldn’t be anywhere right now. Most everyone we’ve helped has started the journey to recovery reluctantly, but it catches up with you. You’ll see.”
“Where are these people you’ve helped?” Joanna leaned in and her face filled with the orange lantern glow. “Where are they now in the world?”
“Making the most of their lives, would be my guess.”
Joanna shook her head and slouched down into her chair, smiling to herself.
“You’d think of all these people you’ve helped, someone would come back to the real world and talk about what you did. About being here, being subjected to whatever it is you plan on subjecting us to.”
“Maybe they have, and maybe they haven’t.”
“I’d imagine stories of this place would probably fall in line with alien abduction and sasquatch sightings, anyway,” Lyle said. Everyone straightened in their seats when he spoke. When he saw their attention on him, he nervously scratched at the back of his neck.
“Probably,” Nuala agreed, tickled. “Anyway, as I was saying before… Leading up to the next stage I thought maybe I’d plan some real outings for us. Something to take your minds off this place a little.”
“A real family outing,” Joanna mumbled.
“Yes, exactly.”
Joanna groaned.
✽✽✽
The next day Nuala loaded up the weathered pickup truck with lunch and other necessities and invited the others for a ride.
“I want to take you all someplace very special to me,” she said.
So they climbed in. Bud sat in the passenger seat, Addie sat in the back with their things, and Joanna and Lyle kept each other company in the bed. There was a small window above the bed which they kept open for communicative purposes, which no one expected either Lyle or Joanna to use anyway.
Addie didn’t know anything about cars, but by looking at the truck from the outside she expected it to run a lot worse than it did. Nuala pulled around in a circle in the yard and they departed, jostled around as the tires rolled along the bumpy dirt road toward the tree line. Bud reached forward and pressed the buttons on the center console. Nothing happened.
“Even if it worked, we wouldn’t get anything here,” Nuala said.
Addie’s heart pounded as they approached the forest. She looked out the small open window at the property shrinking behind them, the road lengthening in between, and wondered what the hell ever brought the doctor way out here—wherever they were.
Once they entered the trees, there seemed to be nothing but trees in any direction, as far as the eye could see, for twenty minutes or more. Joanna exclaimed in the back that she saw a deer, excitedly pointed into the trees, and seemed disappointed when no else could confirm. Eventually they turned on a fork in the road, which took them along the base of a foothill. They followed that until they started a slow climb up several switchbacks. Addie avoided looking out her window during their ascent. The edge of the road, and their truck following along, were too close for comfort.
They continued for another fifteen minutes, rising higher and higher until the road—which quickly became less a road and more like two thin bare tracks of dirt in the weedy grass—brought them to a large flat clearing at the mountains edge. Nuala shut off the engine.
“This is it.”
They got out and stretched their legs. The view was incredible. Afraid to get too close, Addie stood near the cliffside and admired the clear sky above the feathered treetops below them. A sea of blue against a sea of green. The air was crisp.
“What do you think, Joanna?” Nuala asked.
Joanna stood away from the rest, arms wrapped around her middle. She shrugged.
“It’s pretty, I guess.”
Lyle stood in the bed of the truck for a higher vantage point and scanned the valley with his hand shading his eyes. He grimaced.
“What’s special about this place?” he asked, climbing down.
“Aside from the spectacular view,” Nuala began, “this was where I learned to fly.” Scattered around the clearing, they all turned their undivided attention on her, holding their breath. She laughed. “It’s no secret anymore what I am.”
“What the hell are you?” Joanna blurted out.
“I wish I knew.”
“You’re two things,” Addie said. “Aren’t you?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“The thing we saw last night, and those other nights…” Joanna paused. “…before this place…”
“That’s me,” she said. Then she motioned to herself, from her shoulders to her knees. “This is also me. They’re the same, they only look different.”
“Where did you come from?” Addie asked.
“I don’t know that, either. The doctor found me, and for that I’m thankful.”
“You’ve never asked him?”
“Where I come from doesn’t matter. I’m here now, and my purpose keeps me looking forward, not back.”
“Are there others like you?”
She paused, as though she hadn’t considered it before.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
They unpacked the food and had lunch around the truck. Lyle chose to eat his away from the others. He sat with his legs dangled over the cliff’s edge, which Nuala expressed concern over. He said he was fine. Addie couldn’t make her mind up about him. He seemed by turns arrogant and insecure, standoffish and lonely. At times it seemed he wished to be part of the group, and at others he couldn’t seem more miserable to be around them. While the others stayed nearer to the truck, Addie strayed toward the cliff, closer to Lyle, sandwich in hand. Her feet scuffed the dirt and he glanced at her as he ate.
“Aren’t you scared, being that close?”
He took the last bite of his sandwich. “What’s there to be scared of…”
Addie took a seat behind him.
“Does it bother you if I sit here?”
“No.”
They didn’t say anything else while they ate. Addie took small bites, admiring the landscape and Lyle’s profile in equal measure. She didn’t know why exactly she chose to interact with him. He wasn’t particularly pleasant. He didn’t seem to want anything to do with her or the others…
He’s kind of cute, though, she thought.
He mumbled something, too low to understand.
“What’d you say?”
He turned, seeing her from the corner of his eye. Then he looked toward the valley again. She leaned in to hear him better.
“I jumped from a ledge like this a week ago, but instead of a cliff it was a high rise.”
She went cold. She studied him from behind while he resumed staring off into the trees, part of her wanting to grab him by the shoulders and drag him away from the edge. She looked over her shoulder at the others, who had no awareness of their exchange. Nuala no longer seemed concerned…
She leaned in again.
“What made you do it?”
He looked over his shoulder, very slow—like maybe he knew she’d be hanging on his every word, like maybe he loved the story—and their eyes locked.
“I wanted to erase my face on the pavement.” He looked her over, her face, taking her in. “That’s why I jumped headfirst.”
She had no response. Perhaps satisfied by her speechlessness, he turned back around.
Shortly after, Nuala announced it was time to head back.
✽✽✽
“Will you show us?”
It was the next day. Nuala and the group were in the kitchen. Breakfast was a group effort this morning.
“Show you what?”
“Your transformation.”
Nuala finished her banana slices and dumped them into a bowl.
“Maybe some other time.”
When a
ll their fruit was cut, Nuala cooked eggs and bacon over the fire just outside. When that was done, they sat around the kitchen table and ate.
“The doctor told me we’d be seeing him again soon,” Addie said. “When do you think that will be?”
“Probably once we start our trials by the pond.”
“Addie told us about the other night,” Joanna said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it. What did the doctor mean when he said he doesn’t have a mouth?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like.”
“How doesn’t he have a mouth?”
“He’s different,” Nuala said simply. “Like how I’m different.”
“You mean he isn’t human.”
Nuala took her pretty little bird-bites from her bacon, chewing over how she thought would be the best way to put it. The others ate around her, watching her, their eyes child-like.
“I think the opposite is true,” she finally said. “I think he’s… the most human.”
Whatever that meant.
✽✽✽
The fireplace was crackling while they sat together in the foyer that night, the four of them. Nuala was gone. There were no eyes to be seen in the night outside. Everyone was sitting calm and collected except for Joanna, who seemed unable to shake her suspicions.
“Something about this still doesn’t feel right,” she said. Bud, uninterested, bobbed his head against his chest in and out of sleep, stirred again and again by her worries. “You all seem so… trusting. I don’t get it.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m trusting,” Addie said. “I’m just learning to agree with Nuala. We don’t have anywhere else to be.”
“What if they were torturing us? Would you still feel that way?”
“If we were in obvious danger…” Addie paused. “That would be expected. But I don’t feel in danger. Not right this instant.”
Joanna looked at the boys, who didn’t seem to be paying attention.
“I feel like I’m the only animal in line who realizes where the muddy ramp leads.”
Lyle looked up from his book. “Wow. I had no idea you were so poetic.”
She shook her head and left to her bedroom.
A few minutes of quiet later and Bud was asleep. Addie watched the fire. Lyle read his book.
“What are you reading?”
“A book.”
Addie laughed. “I see that.”
Lyle didn’t indulge her. From where she sat, she clearly saw the title of the book he read—East of Eden—but that wasn’t the point.
“What do you think of this place?”
He folded his book in his lap.
“It’s a place. I don’t have any strong feelings about anything here.”
“What about when you first woke up?”
“I don’t know. What did you feel?”
“Afraid. Confused. I definitely felt like I was in danger then.”
“But you don’t feel that anymore.”
“Kind of, I do, sure. Not as much.”
“So maybe it’s working.”
“What’s working?”
“Whatever it is they’re doing to us. Making us feel like we belong here. Softening us up. Opening ourselves up to them so they can pluck us out like oysters.”
She grinned. “Joanna’s not the only poet, I see.”
“I think she’s got the right idea.”
“You don’t trust Nuala either? Or the doctor?”
“I never met the doctor. And no. They’re strangers. They’re meddlers. We shouldn’t be here.”
“I don’t see you trying to escape.”
“You mean again?”
Addie had almost forgotten their first night, his broken window.
“That doesn’t count. I ran, too…” She paused. “I mean to say, you don’t seem at all uncomfortable like before.”
“I don’t care enough to worry much, I guess.”
“About anything?”
“Anything.”
“If they were hurting us, or killing us, would you?”
“They’d be doing me a favor then.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sounds like you feel sorry for yourself.”
“Is there something wrong with feeling sorry for yourself?” He cocked his head and gazed a short while at Addie, eyes squinted, analyzing. “If I can look at another person and see their situation and pity them, why can’t I do the same for me? I’m a person, aren’t I? In an unfortunate situation?”
“I guess because there’s not much you can do for someone else’s situation, but you can always change your own.”
“Says who?” He placed his book on the arm of the sofa. “Someone already in a better place, probably. From the start. Someone who doesn’t know what being ill-equipped for life is like.”
“Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t change any of that, though.”
“All right, then. Do you think yourself capable of changing on your own?”
“I would hope so.”
“Do you think every person is capable of that?”
“I think so, yes.”
Lyle grimaced. “Do you think it’s possible on your own, though? That’s the main thing. What motivates someone to better their life or themselves? How does a person know it’s time to change something? How does a person decide to overcome or surrender to their wallowing?”
“I guess that’s the difference between being weak and being strong.”
“Do you realize how shallow you sound?”
Addie tensed. If she’d known she was about to be lectured, she never would have started…
“You must consider yourself a weak person then, yeah?”
“I know I’m weak. That’s nothing new to me.”
“Do you think people who kill themselves are weak people?”
“I don’t know…”
“Do you really believe those people have a choice in the matter? Do you actually believe those people made a choice in what they did, to give up or persevere? Do you think someone else put in your shoes would choose differently than you?”
“How should I know?”
“You’re you, aren’t you? If someone else was you… how could they choose differently? They'd be you, and you wrote your own history already, didn’t you?”
“I don’t even know what you’re saying anymore…”
Lyle sighed. “Do you really think you’re in control of your life? I know you can regret things, but do you think it was possible for you to have done any differently? If you could rewind and live life over from the beginning, with no memory of any of it, and you had to live toward the same mistakes over again… what do you think the chances are that you’d make them a second time? Or choose differently?”
“It’s impossible to know.”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Then tell me what you think, already. Make your point.”
“I think we’re products of our pasts, with little ability to choose our futures. I think if I were you… if I lived your life, experienced all your experiences, shared your DNA… I think I’d be sitting on that couch looking at me right now without the slightest clue of what was being said.”
Again, Addie was speechless. She followed his words, his meaning, and they left a ringing in her ears, a pounding in her chest.
“I feel sorry for you, for him…” He motioned to Bud asleep next to her. “… for Joanna. And I think I have the right as much as anyone else to feel a little sorry for me, too. Life is unfair and I know that, but it doesn’t mean I also have to like it.”
“But it’s still up to you to make the best of it,” Addie said.
Lyle laughed. It was a cold sound. “It’s all the same. No one chooses their best, either. But you can be sure as hell they’ll be judged for it.”
And with that, he stood from the couch and left for bed.
Chapter Fourteen
Bud was the first. He decided. Or perhaps Nuala decided. It was hard to know when Bud meant something or
when he was only being agreeable.
They stood under the hot sun in their clean white shirts and black gym shorts, the bathtub waiting on the nearest side of the pond now, opposite where they’d seen it last. Nuala stood next to it with a bucket in hand. She scooped water from the pond with her bucket. The hem of her dusty maroon sundress barely dipped in the foggy water. It took a dozen or so bucketfuls to fill the tub. The four of them studied the brown-clear water from a safe distance. Three of them were grateful not to be going first.
“All right,” Nuala said. “Come on over, Bud.”
From the grass, she picked up a large beach towel she’d brought. She held it out in front of Bud, a curtain substitute. He undressed and set his clothes in the grass.
“Climb in slowly,” she advised. “When you’re in, just close your eyes and get comfortable. The water shouldn’t be too cold…”
They saw his naked feet and ankles under the towel. He lifted them and water splashed. His skin squealed on the porcelain as he lowered himself inside.
“I’ll need an actual bath after this,” he said.
“Shhh.” Nuala tossed the towel into the grass. “Just feel the water around you …”
He closed his eyes and slipped lower into the tub, rested the back of his head against its lip. They watched him for a few minutes while nothing happened. At least, not that they saw. His face remained plain and patient. A couple times he scratched an itch on his face or in his hair.
“I don’t see why we need to watch this—”
“Shh…” Nuala cut Joanna short. She held her finger to her lips for quiet.
Bud made a face, like smelling a stench, nostrils flared, upper lip pinched on one side underneath. He stretched his neck, lifted his chin, ridding himself of some kind of discomfort. Nuala stood with the rest of them. They watched him quietly together, watched his shifting mood, fixed their eyes on his smooth, boyish skin burning under the sun’s rays. Each of them knew it would be them next eventually, in his place. For that, they hoped not to see anything too exciting …
He shuddered. His shoulders tensed, hunched. His expression spoiled again, only this time his lips trembled. He squeezed his eyes shut tight.