Half Lives (27 page)

Marissa slipped her sunglasses onto the top of her bald head. She rubbed her eyes and cracked her neck from side to side. ‘Sorry, Tate,’ she said. ‘It’s just I
haven’t been able to sleep, you know, and it’s all a bit, whatever, and I, well, I can’t, you know what I mean.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. That’s how my head felt too most of the time. All jumbled. My body was always in a heightened sense of alert. It was hard to live not knowing, but
always fearing.

‘Just deal.’ Marissa dug around in her handbag and whipped out a roll of peppermint Life Savers. ‘Mint?’ She offered one to each of us. Even though she was the queen of
body odour, fresh breath was a priority. She made sure we got one breath mint a day. I sucked on the mint very slowly, savouring the cool sweetness.

We played for the rest of the morning, upping the ante every half hour. That’s a trick Tate taught us from Vegas poker tournaments. It kept the game moving. The first time we played poker
the game lasted for hours. It wasn’t as if we had anything better to do, but the game lost its lustre after about three hours.

The last hand was down to Tate and Marissa. Tate’s legs were bouncing and he was even drumming his fingers on his thighs. He must’ve had a really good hand. I’d been the first
one out of pebbles. I was only starting to get the hang of it – looking at my hand and figuring out my odds of winning. Chaske lost his pebbles next.

I couldn’t be sure, because he never showed us his cards, but I think he’d intentionally thrown the game. I got the sense that, if he wanted to, Chaske would win every time. Tate
bragged about his poker skills, but Chaske had the cool, calm demeanour of the poker players on those all-night poker channels.

Chaske flipped the last card over. Tate’s lips twitched for only a split second into a smile and then he tried to make his expression blank.

‘I’m all in,’ Marissa said, and pushed her pile of chips into the middle.

‘Me too,’ Tate said and did the same.

‘It’s winner take all,’ I said in my best TV poker-announcer voice. You’d think a safe bunker underground would trump being outside with a possible World War III
scenario, but looking at Marissa’s bloodshot eyes and Tate’s pale skin, I wasn’t so sure. This place was taking its toll.

Marissa showed her cards. She had two queens in her hand and there was a queen and two fours on the blanket. She had a full house. Tate beamed and slapped his cards down – he used the same
two fours on the table, but he had the other two fours in his hand. ‘Four of a kind,’ he shouted, and jumped to his feet. ‘I win. You lose.’ He whooped and hollered.
You’d think he’d won the lottery, not a pile of pebbles.

‘Who gives a shit about this stupid game?!’ Marissa shook her corner of the sleeping bag, causing the cards and pebbles to scatter. She stormed off. I’d been worried about
Marissa before but this was mega-weird even for her.

‘Whoa,’ Tate said, freezing mid-victory dance. ‘I was just saying . . . I mean, it’s no big deal.’ He called after her, ‘I’m sure you’ll win next
time, Baldy!’

There would be no next time. When Tate brought the cards the next morning for poker, the queen of hearts was missing and, no matter where we looked, we couldn’t find it.

‘Don’t think, just do.’

– Just Saying 15

HARPER

H
arper squints through the snarled brambles. ‘Beckett,’ she calls. He wasn’t waiting at their spot like he promised. She followed a
trail of footprints here, but she can’t believe Beckett would ever cross the Crown and break one of the Great I AM’s most sacred rules – anyone who crosses the Crown will be
punished with death. Harper can’t believe that could happen. But why isn’t he answering? ‘Beckett, where are you?’

She can’t imagine life without him. He is not only the air in her lungs but the reason she breathes. She will spend her whole life searching for him. ‘Beckett.’ She
whispers his name like a Saying. She closes her eyes and, for the first time, she says to the Great I AM – it’s more bargain than worship –‘Please, Great I AM, return him to
me. I will be your servant, your greatest Cheerleader, if only you keep him safe.’

‘Harper?’

She stumbles away from the Crown. Is that the voice of the Great I AM?

‘Harper.’ The voice is human and makes her heart sing.

‘Beckett, where are you?’ She spins in a crazy circle.

‘I’m right here.’ Through the Crown he looks broken into a hundred pieces.

‘Beckett?’ She exhales her thanks to the Great I AM. ‘How?’ How has he crossed? How has he survived?

‘The Great I AM has spared me.’

She tries to weave her hand through the brambles. If she can touch him, she’ll know he’s OK. But the thicket is too dense and wide.

‘But why? Why would you cross the Crown?’ she asks.

‘Finch tried to kill me,’ Beckett says.

This is all her fault. She punches her fists through the Crown. She cries out as the thorns rake her skin away in fine red welts. She hooks her arms through the vines. She rattles the
Crown like a cage. It crackles, almost groans, but doesn’t give. She needs to reach him. He will make everything all right. He always has. She can survive anything as long as she has Beckett.
‘I’m crossing too.’

‘Harper,’ Beckett says, softly, and waits for her to calm down. ‘Harper, I’m not sure it’s safe.’

‘I don’t care,’ she says. ‘It’s not safe for me here. Please, Beckett, please let me in.’

‘OK,’ he says finally. He must know she wouldn’t accept any other answer.

‘If you go, I go, remember?’ Harper says, recalling what he’d said so long ago.

‘Harper, you’re going to have to climb over. Do you think you can do that?’

‘No problem,’ she says without hesitation.

‘Are you sure?’ he asks. ‘I mean, I can’t guarantee . . .’

Harper scans the hedge, looking for the best place to cross. ‘Move away. Give me some room.’ She strides back several paces. Beckett backs away from the Crown.

Harper launches herself at the hedge. The Crown wobbles as she plants her foot half way up. The bramble bounces as she springs to the top. And then it’s as if she’s
flying. Her arms sweep from her side and stretch over her head. Harper wishes she could take flight and fly them far, far away. She can’t protect him any more – not from Finch or Greta
or herself. She lands with an
oof
.

Harper stands and dusts herself off. She slicks back her hair and knots it at the base of her neck. She feels a twinge of fear. Will the Great I AM punish her for crossing the Crown,
for lying about Terrorists, for betraying Beckett? She holds her breath.

Nothing.

She was desperate to reach him and now that he’s an arm’s length away she doesn’t know what to do.

‘The Great I AM has spared us for a reason,’ Beckett says.

Is that true? There is another explanation, which means Beckett’s entire life is based on a lie. But Harper doesn’t mention it.

Harper spots the black cat on the other side of the Crown. ‘Look, Beckett.’ She points.

Lucky flattens her body and crawls under the Crown. Her ears are drawn back nearly flat on her head. Once inside the Crown, she carefully rises to all fours, contorting her body to
fit a gap in the branches. She appears to tiptoe, lifting one foot slowly and testing a branch before she slips her paw into a triangle of space. When she pulls her body free of the Crown, she
shakes from the tip of her black nose to the point of her tail.

‘She makes it looks easy.’ Beckett laughs and then grimaces.

That’s when Harper notices the hundreds of scabs dotting Beckett’s body. ‘What happened?’ She moves to comfort him but he waves her away.

‘I wasn’t as graceful as you.’ He gingerly kneels to greet Lucky. She saunters over and nuzzles his side. He strokes her furry head and she purrs.

Harper expected this forbidden land to be different than the land below. But it’s just dirt and rock with a sprinkling of green. She wanders up the Mountain. The moon is hiding
behind clouds. The landscape is painted in shades of grey. She’s looking up ahead, searching for what makes this place so special. The ball of her foot feels the edge before her heel makes
contact with the broken ground. She waves wildly to keep from falling headlong into the deep hole in front of her. ‘Beckett,’ she calls, and lands hard on her back.

She flops over and finds herself looking into a pit. The clouds must have shifted, allowing more moonlight, because suddenly she can see clearly what’s below.

Beckett dives next to her. ‘Are you OK?’

Harper’s focus is fixed on the pit. Bone fragments, lots of them. She counts maybe a dozen of what might be skulls. She wonders if these are the remains of others who have
defied the Great I AM and crossed the Crown. Maybe it was a mistake to cross, but what choice did they have? Half buried among the scrambled bone fragments are flashes of metal. She thinks she sees
the broken blade of a knife. There’s a fragment of pink rubber and a big, square watch face that would barely fit in her closed fist. The glass is cracked, but its edges sparkle in the same
way the Mountain spring does when the sun catches it just right.

‘What’s that?’ Harper points at the pink. Beckett doesn’t respond. He has a faraway look as if his body is here but his mind is somewhere else.
‘What’s wrong, Beckett?’

‘Crossing the Crown has brought me closer to the Great I AM,’ Beckett says. ‘I can feel it. The Great I AM is trying to tell me something, but it’s just out of
reach.’

She wishes they could be lost in this no-man’s land for ever, but she feels exposed in this sacred place. Part of her is still awaiting the Great I AM’s revenge for
crossing the Crown. Another part of her expects an attack from Finch, and still another fears that Greta and her people will come after them and invade the Mountain. ‘What do we do
now?’ Harper asks.

‘Nothing,’ Beckett says with a peace that feels incongruous to Harper in their current situation. ‘We will wait for a sign from the Great I AM.’

The sky darkens again. Harper feels a wet drop on her head and another on her body. Raindrops dot Beckett’s upturned face. Rain pours from the sky. Maybe this is Harper’s
sign. She will find peace with Beckett in this moment for as long as it lasts. Harper sticks out her tongue and closes her eyes. She whips her head from side to side, flicking the water into the
air. She smoothes the water over her face and neck. The raindrops feel more like pebbles pelting from above.

Harper points to a cluster of boulders that create a protective tepee. Lucky has already found the shelter. She swishes her tail as the pair joins her.

Harper rests her head on Beckett’s shoulder, and he hides a kiss in her damp, ratty nest of hair.

‘We should thank the Great I AM for the rain,’ Beckett says.

‘And the rocks,’ Harper adds.
And for saving you
, she thinks. Maybe he can truly forgive her and they can forget about Finch and Greta and live up here in
solitude. Maybe Beckett’s right. Harper is starting to feel something more, something bigger than the both of them.

They repeat the Evening Tune softly into the howling wind.

They curl into each other and fall asleep.

A shrill scream erupts all around them. Harper’s eyes spring open. It’s morning. It takes a second to remember where she is and what has happened. Beckett’s
there and that’s all that matters.

Another scream.

Harper’s pulse rockets. Lucky leaps from her resting place on Beckett’s lap and runs off to hide. Another scream and Harper and Beckett draw closer together. This scream
doesn’t stop. It feeds on itself and consumes the air around them. The sound tears at Harper’s flesh as if it has teeth.