They walked us all day and into the night, stopping once for food. This ended up being a giant grasshopper, which Zo shot through one huge, faceted eye and out the other. (“Surprisingly nutty,” Asa said with his mouth full. I had to close my eyes and pretend to be somewhere else to choke it down.) Judith, however, ate what looked like hardtack, and avoided the grasshopper altogether.
“I’m a vegetarian,” Judith said when Asa offered her a grasshopper leg. “Thanks, though. You’re pretty polite for a prisoner.”
Polite or not, as it turned out, Asa was surprisingly bad at traveling. He drank more than his share of water, ate quite a lot of food, and he had the tendency to quietly mimic the things the girls did. He didn’t mean it in a schoolyard-taunting sort of way, thank God, or they might have killed us there. It seemed he was genuinely trying to learn things… but I could tell it was grating on Zo’s and Judith’s nerves. Once, Zo snapped her fingers, trying to get his attention; then, for an hour, I had to deal with Asa next to me, trying over and over to snap. When he started to nod off while walking, I whistled short and fast, to keep him from falling in his traces and taking us both down. And then, of course, he had to try to learn to whistle.
“Cut it out, songbird,” Zo said. “Or I’ll bury a bullet in your back.”
That shut him up.
“I don’t get it,” I whispered. “You can do magic tricks but you can’t snap or whistle?”
Asa shrugged. “I was created knowing how to do magic tricks,” he whispered. “Learning human things like this is something else. Besides, it keeps my mind off things.” He rolled his tongue into a tube. “Can you do this?” he said. “I heard that not everyone can.”
“Asa, I swear to God—” I started.
“Y’all got something to say?” Judith said.
“No, ma’am,” said Asa.
“‘Ma’am,’” Judith snorted. “You gotta stop with all this ‘ma’am’ and ‘miss’ and ‘ladies’ stuff. This ain’t 1843, you know.”
“Sorry,” said Asa. “Old habits die hard, I suppose.”
“Well, kill them faster,” said Zo.
Old habits, I thought. He’s been a human for, what? A month?
“What’s your deal anyway, Harold?” Judith said, turning and walking backward as she held the rope that bound us together. “I know this one’s that old hag’s Successor, but what are you? You some kinda preacher or snake oil salesman or something? You Little Miss Successor’s boyfriend?”
“Ew, no!” I said, my voice sounding more disgusted than I meant to.
“You sure?” Judith’s eyes flickered from me to Asa.
“Our Successor here isn’t the boyfriend type, if you know what I mean,” said Zo. She looked me up and down, then smiled smugly. “There isn’t a man alive who could tie her down.”
My insides seemed to crinkle in irritation. “I don’t know what you’re getting at—”
“To answer your question, I am simply a magician,” Asa said, cutting me off before I could get us killed. “Of the street-performing variety.”
“And a daemon,” I added under my breath, but no one heard me.
“Oh, Cassie will like this, Zo,” said Judith, her eyes lighting up. “Maybe the boss’ll keep him alive long enough to do a few tricks?”
“Don’t give them false hope,” Zo scolded. “It’s rude. Besides, we don’t want any of the kind of nonsense they pulled back in Elysium. You saw all that smoke.” She looked back at us and shook her head. “Not worth our time.”
“Well, I hope you get to do some tricks, anyway,” said Judith, patting Asa on the shoulder.
“Thank you,” said Asa, growing pale even in the darkness. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
There was a noise to our right, and I saw Zo’s body tense in the moonlight.
“Quick! Down!” she hissed. She dove behind a massive cluster of tumbleweeds, and we felt ourselves yanked off our feet as Judith slung us behind her.
“Don’t make a sound,” Zo whispered. “Don’t even think of it or I will kill you. Do you understand?”
We nodded. Then we heard the sound of distant voices, loud, crass. Men’s voices. We froze. Zo had her guns cocked and ready. Judith had a big stick in her hand, ready to club someone to death.
A group of men came out from behind a ridge then. There were twelve of them, all big, all shirtless, their once-pale bodies baked pink by the sun, now a mottled color in the moonlight. Some wore what looked like handmade dust masks, all metal and glass, over their mouths; some had old dust masks around their necks. All of them carried weapons that looked like modified clubs and spears and guns, and the ones who weren’t carrying guns were carrying what looked like pieces from old trucks and tractors. But what was most striking about them were the black designs painted across their bodies. Biblical designs like crosses and serpents and skulls, painted in something greasy and pungent. Axle grease, I realized when the wind blew their stink our way. Axle grease and—I squinted—yes: blood spatter. They had killed something recently. Or someone. I shuddered and kept still, trying not to breathe.
“The Laredo Boys,” Judith whispered, voice thick with hatred.
“And there’s Samson out front,” said Zo. “I wonder what they’re doing all the way out here?”
I remembered hearing about these men before, men painted with axle grease, raining terror beyond the walls. They’d been ranchers once, or so the story went, ranchers who refused to live by Mother Morevna’s new laws and chose to take their chances in the desert instead of living in a city where a woman ruled and everyone could drink from the same wells.
“Got lucky today,” one of them said to another as they passed us. “What a haul!”
“Too bad about the old man,” said another, carrying what looked like the door of an automobile.
“He shouldn’t have put up such a fight,” said the first man. The top of his bald head was painted with a design of a grinning skull with wings. “But he’s buzzard food now.”
“So these are the people I was supposed to be running from,” Asa whispered, a little too loudly.
Judith clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late.
“Did you hear something?” the bald man said. He and the other man stopped, took a step toward our tumbleweed nest. Judith and Zo exchanged glances, ready to come up swinging, shooting. Then the biggest one, their leader, turned. His eyes were hard blue, slivers of pale in his sun-reddened face.
“Quit bullshitting,” he barked. “We got three miles to go.”
“A-all right, Samson,” said the bald man. “I was just checking is all.” He cast another glance at the pile of tumbleweeds, then fell in behind the rest of the group. They trudged onward until they topped the ridge and disappeared into the dark.
Zo and Judith held us there a few moments more, watching. Then, when Zo saw that the coast was clear, she pulled us from behind the rock.
“Good job keeping quiet, for the most part,” said Zo. “It was smart of you. You don’t want to know what would have happened to you if they’d caught you instead of us.”
“I suppose I should consider myself lucky.” I patted dust off my skirt.
“Yeah,” Judith said earnestly. “You really should. If they had it their way, we’d all be wives or something. Always pregnant, always getting hit, until we got too weak or sick to take care of, and then getting eaten when hunting or scavenging is bad.”
“E-eaten, did you say?” Asa gulped.
“So the stories go,” said Judith. “They’re our enemies, through and through.”
I shuddered involuntarily, thinking of all the stories I’d heard passed around in Elysium. Of all the ones to be true, why did it have to be those?
“Wh-what were they doing with those car parts?” Asa asked.
“Out here, we don’t have anything,” Judith said. “So when you’re building your shelters, making your own machines and stuff, whatever you can strip from old cars comes in handy. They use it to make weapo
ns, shields, things like that. And the more parts you got, the better off you are out here. They’ve got a pretty good mechanic, but we have the best one out here.”
“For now,” said Zo, and her voice full of bitterness.
“Is she angry with us?” Asa whispered to me.
But before I could answer, a familiar, dreadful feeling rose up out of nowhere. Nausea, sharpness. The rain was coming, just as it always did, without rhyme or reason. Coming just because it could. Just to show me I’d never be rid of it, never understand it.
Not now! I thought at the rain. Not now, please!
“Sal!” I heard Asa say. “Sal! What’s wrong?” But his voice sounded far away, muffled as though he were underwater, or I was. I fell to the ground, dragging Asa with me. “Help!” he cried. “Somebody help her!”
“What’s the matter with her?” said Judith’s voice.
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Asa panicked.
“Get out of the way!” Zo flipped me over expertly. Her hands were on me, opening my mouth. “Make sure she doesn’t swallow her tongue!”
I was shaking. The darkness was rising.
“Fight it!” Asa was saying. “Whatever’s happening, fight it!”
But this time, the rain would not be fought back. It rose in my head, the roaring of it like a train in my mind. I clutched my stomach. But as the darkness rose around me and I felt my eyes roll back, I knew I was powerless to resist it.
“Sal!” Asa cried. But I was gone.
I was wandering the edges of Elysium as the walls were being built, my eyes on the horizon. It was that day, I knew. That awful day all over again. The first time I saw the rain.
The sound of hammers and nails filled the air, of mud being slapped into frames and made into bricks. Mama was somewhere behind me with the other water pitcher women, going around the perimeter of the wall, offering water to the workers.
But my eyes were on the horizon. In my bones, I could feel something significant, something blessed. Change was coming. But what? And from where?
I looked out over the strange new desert, seeing it not for its danger, but for its splendor. This was a land where a girl could have adventures, just like the ones I’d read about. This was a land where a girl could be the hero she knew she was. I was not afraid.
Out in the desert, the sky was darkening. A ripple of excitement ran through me. I turned back to see the workers’ expressions, but none of them looked up. Why didn’t anyone notice?
Across town, I heard the choir begin practicing, even though the God we knew was just a comfortable tether to our past. Keeping up morale. They started singing, squeaky soprano voices and altos just off-key.
“I’m pressing on the upward way
New heights I’m gaining every day
Still praying as I onward bound
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
I could smell it now: rain. That telltale heaviness in the air, the feeling of sudden, damp wind against my skin. Though if I’d looked closer, I’d have seen that no dust was stirring and that the air was still.
I turned and looked back. Nobody was watching me. Nobody was paying attention.
I took a deep breath. Then I plunged. I ran, over the dusty fields with their nubs of stubbly, dead wheat, out into the desert, out toward the horizon. I could see something rising there, a darkness.
This must be the rain! I thought, ignoring the nausea rising in my stomach. And I’ll be the first to feel it!
Behind the eyes of my younger body, I felt like clawing my way out, ripping the husk of myself off me and throwing it into the wind. I tried, with all my effort, all my power, to make myself get up, to run back home. But I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, no matter how much I wanted to. I was an observer, shackled to the past.
The wind began to pick up. There was a tingle of electricity in the air.
“Sal!” came a voice.
No, I thought. Not again. Please don’t make me live through this again. But when I opened my eyes, there she was: Mama. She was running toward me, through the fields, her dust mask hanging from her neck. I realized then that I had gotten so far from the city, so far from the walls.
“Sal…?” she said. “What are you doing all the way out here, honey?”
It had begun to get cold, far colder than it had been only an hour ago.
“Rain’s coming, Mama!” I said. “I can feel it!”
Then a siren blared behind us. We turned, slowly, looking toward the north. On the horizon was a dark line.… Rain clouds? No. A dust storm, a mile high, ten miles wide. Sweeping toward us.
“Oh, God, Sal… run!” Mama shouted. She bent and reached out to touch me. There was a snap of static electricity and she winced, but kept ahold of me.
We ran, our legs pumping as we ran back toward the walls. I could see the black dot that was Mother Morevna coming out into the center of town, drawing everyone around her to cast the Dust Dome Spell.
“Wait!” cried Mama.
But the dust storm rolled toward us, bigger and blacker and thicker than any storm I’d ever seen. No! I thought. I will not see this again. My head pounded as I tried to wrench myself out of the vision. But the dust was still coming, that black wall still advancing. We ran harder, our chests hurting, dust whipping behind us. But we could not escape the storm. It roared behind us, a great dark monster swallowing everything. We were almost there. Just a little more!
“Wait!” Mama cried again, but we were too far away.
“PULVAREM FIRMAMENTUM!” Mother Morevna shouted. And the dome spread over Elysium, spreading downward in front of us, into the ground. I felt my body connect with the dome of the spell, hard and unyielding as a glass door. We were too late!
We turned to face the storm, pitch-black and howling. Mama reached for my dust mask, but I’d left it behind like the careless, worthless little girl I had been. Then Mama pulled me to her and wrenched her own mask off.
“I love you,” Mama said. “Hold on to me.”
I tried to stop her, tried to cry out, but before I could, she fastened the mask—her mask—over my face. Then, as the wall of dust roared above us, she pulled me to her and held me close. Then the dust swallowed both of us, the grit and wind cutting us, hurting us, peeling the skin off anything not covered. The sky went black. And this time, even with Mama’s mask on, I felt for all the world like I was drowning.
“Sal!” Asa’s human heart pounded; he crouched, powerless with his hands tied to Sal’s rope. “Sal, please!”
But she was gone. As gone as someone could be while still being in front of you. Vomit bubbled up out of her throat.
“Quick!” said Zo. She bent and grabbed Sal’s braids out of the widening puddle and pulled her head up, but she was limp. Zo pulled her away from the puddle, checked her pulse.
“Rain…” Sal said softly. Then she was gone again.
“I need him out of the way,” Zo said.
“If you want to help your friend, don’t try anything funny,” Judith growled. She untied the rope that bound Asa to Sal and held it in her hand, her grip firm. But she needn’t have bothered. Asa couldn’t leave if he wanted to. He was rooted to the spot, watching, worried, and awestruck. Magic practically radiated out from her as she lay on the sand, a strange sort of magic, unelegant, brutal. It was a powerful, unhoned magic that could be anything and everything, good or bad, creative or destructive. He had seen Sal’s magic before, but never had he seen anything like this. And suddenly, irrevocably, he knew that Sal had a part to play in all of this as well. But what it was, he couldn’t say.
“Come on,” said Zo, lifting Sal in her arms. “Let’s find some shelter. I don’t want to travel until she’s awake.”
Then Judith jerked his rope and he started walking.
Shelter ended up being a hollow space in a fencerow covered with a thicket of tumbleweeds. Judith tied Asa to a fence post and laid Sal next to him, her hands also tied to a nearby post.
He crouche
d next to her silently, pondering, for hours. When she finally opened her eyes again, Asa let out a whooshing breath of relief and said, “Oh, thank goodness! You really had me there for a while!”
“Where are we?” Sal asked groggily, pulling on her rope.
“In a ditch,” Asa whispered. “Judith is asleep just over there. Zo’s keeping watch over us. But never mind that! What was that? What happened to you?”
“The… rain,” Sal said, something like shame rising in her voice. “I see rain sometimes. I’ve seen it since Black Sunday, but this… this was worse than usual. I feel like I’ve been run over by a tractor.”
“I can see why,” Asa said. “You have no idea how much magic you were using. It was like… It was more magic than I’ve seen all at once, maybe ever. What is this… rain you see? What does it mean?”
“Look, I don’t know, okay?” Sal snapped. “It’s been the thorn in my side for a long time, and I really wish I could just make it never happen again. But I can’t. And I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now.”
“All right,” Asa said. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything. I’m just glad you’re back is all.”
“Thanks,” she said, and he could tell even through her tone that she really meant it.
They sat in silence for a moment; then Sal said, “Are they still taking us north? Still the same way?”
Asa nodded. “In a beeline.”
“Good.” Sal lay back and took a deep breath. “That’s where the penny was pointing. And it’s better to be taken there by them than to blunder our way over alone. For now, anyway.”
She seemed so sure of it, but Asa was anything but sure. A sense of dread was growing inside him and seemed to multiply the closer they got to their destination.
“I have a bad feeling about where we’re going,” Asa heard himself say. “Like it will be the end of me. Maybe it’s… intuition? If I’m human enough to have that yet.”
Elysium Girls Page 14