Half Lives (34 page)

‘We can’t let bad things define us,’ Beckett says. He searches his soul and the words come to him. ‘We must learn what we can from difficult times and become
better people. Maybe that’s the reason. Maybe that’s always the reason.’

‘What good can ever come from this?’ Greta asks.

‘All I know is that for the first time in my life, the Great I AM has given me a television. This has to be right. It has to.’ Beckett can feel Forreal and Vega colliding
and slipping away all at once. ‘The Heart is up there somewhere and I’m going to find it. Maybe it holds the answer to our conflict.’ He takes off up the Mountain.

Harper follows, dragging Greta behind her. ‘He’s doing this for you,’ Harper explains to Greta. ‘So can you stop fighting and go with us?’

‘Do I have a choice?’ Greta asks.

‘No,’ Harper says.

Beckett wishes he knew what he was looking for. He’s imagined the Heart as a giant glowing crystal. He wonders if it is a living creature. Or is it an organ, something beating
like a human heart? Maybe it is as tiny as a speck of dust and as dull as a sun-worn rock. It could be energy like a ray of sun. He wonders if the Great I AM will be there welcoming him with open
arms. Whatever it is, he could have passed the Heart of the Mountain without realizing it.

His eyes strain as he explores the moonlit Mountaintop.

He instinctively Says. ‘Great I AM . . .’ He searches for the words.

And then there it is.

The Great I AM has led him here. For the first time since Finch imprisoned him, Beckett feels hope.

A huge round stone rests against what appears to be the opening to a cave. The stone is sandy-brown and big enough that Beckett would have to stretch his body from fingertips to toes
to fill the circle. The cave entrance has been packed tight with rocks similar to the ones used to create the wall that they scaled earlier. He looks closer; the infinity symbol is carved in the
rock.
Believing is seeing.

Beckett falls to his knees. He sends his thanks to the Great I AM. He’s found the Heart of the Mountain. All the stories are true. The Great I AM marked the Heart of the
Mountain with the symbol etched on his wrist.

To be at the spot where the Great I AM stood.

To be so close to the Mountain’s secret.

He reaches up and traces the symbol with his finger, an unending loop. His mind races with what he might find inside. He has sacrificed his whole life for this. He thought he would
feel more. There’s no booming voice. No white light. Just a stone with a symbol. Maybe his simple human brain can’t comprehend what this is and what it means.

‘It’s here,’ Beckett says as Harper, Greta and Lucky catch up with him. ‘We’ve found it.’

Harper now carries a burning torch in one hand and grips Greta’s wrist in the other. One of Harper’s arms is bare where she’s used her scraps of clothing to make the
torch.

Beckett dislodges a rock from the pile which seals the opening to the Heart. As he pulls it free, rocks cascade down and spill at his feet. He removes another and another until he is
shovelling them away in armfuls. When the hole is big enough, he slips inside.

He can see only a few feet before the light filtering around him fades to black. The smell of earth is overpowering.

Suddenly the space is illuminated in a flickering light. Maybe the Great I AM is here.

‘Harper thought you might need this.’ It’s Greta’s voice. A torch is thrust through the opening.

He squints as his eyes adjust to the burst of light. He takes the torch and waves it around. There’s a door. A door in a mountain. The earth has crumbled around it and
it’s tipped forwards, leaving a gap between the doorframe and the earth. The Heart must lie beyond.

Beckett inches closer and closer to the door. His foot touches something rough. He shines his torch on the ground. It’s not stones scraping the soles of his feet. These are
bones. Human bones.

Beckett can tell there are two skeletons side by side. Wires are attached to a silver rectangle which is embedded in the smaller skeleton. Beckett forces himself forwards around the
skeletons towards the door.

Beckett’s attention zooms in on the symbol etched into the door. The circular shape is similar to the image on Greta’s shirt. ‘Peace,’ Beckett murmurs.

Beckett wonders if death is always the price of peace.

C
haske and I made love every day. Out there I’d have laughed out loud at the phrase ‘making love’. It’s what soap opera
characters did. Lola and I had made fun of our friend Tanz for saying she’d ‘made love’ with Dirk after the homecoming dance.
Um, you can’t make much in four minutes and
fifteen seconds
, we’d said, and laughed. But now, in here, with Chaske, that was what it felt like.

We weren’t doing it to pass the time. There wasn’t pressure or guilt or embarrassment. He wasn’t going to dump me for someone named Molly Andersen. It was something real and
beautiful in this cold, dark place.

Chaske and I would zip ourselves snug in his sleeping bag afterwards. He’d lie on his back, and I’d curl into the crook of his arm. Our body heat would multiply and provide us with
the only warmth we’d felt all day. I’d roll on my elbow and watch him sleep until Tate called ten-something o’clock and switched off the lights. I’d memorize the slope of
his nose and how his eyes were more squinty than open. His broad nose and high cheekbones. I’d trace the scar on his eyebrow. I never mentioned the scars on the rest of his body and neither
did he. His muscles drew well-defined lines on his earthy-brown skin. I loved the feel of his sculpted body, holding me tightly until he finally relaxed with sleep.

I knew we weren’t a perfect match. He was gorgeous and comfortable in his own skin. His thoughts and body flowed effortlessly. I was fake and plastic – a Barbie who’d thought
she was original only to realize she was mass-produced. He was mysterious and dark like those modern comic-book superheroes – Batman and Spider-Man, full of tragedy and chivalry – which
I guess made me the vapid damsel in distress. Not Catwoman or Spidey’s Mary Jane Watson, but one who makes a guest appearance in need of rescue and says something like ‘Golly, thanks,
Batman.’

In a very strange way, I was glad there was only one person around. I didn’t want to share our romance with anyone. Tate was oblivious. I didn’t want him teasing us or asking
questions. I also thought it might make him uncomfortable. He saw us as a trio and that’s how I wanted it to stay. I was afraid that if he knew Chaske and I were a couple, he’d feel
like the odd one out. Secrets were OK if they were to protect people’s feelings, right? For all of his many annoying habits, I was beginning to think of Tate as a little brother.

‘Chaske,’ I whispered one night after Tate turned out the lights.

‘Yeah,’ he muttered.

‘Why do you like me?’ It was a stupid schoolgirl question, but I wanted to know. ‘Is it just because I’m here?’

‘What?’

‘Why do you like me?’ I would have never asked this question in the light, never asked it out there. Those questions acted as repellent to high-school boys.

‘I don’t like you,’ he said.

I felt the crush of rejection. Of course he didn’t. How could I ever believe that someone like him could like someone like me? I made a move to turn over, but he pulled me into him,
kissing my eyebrow, the first bit of skin his lips could find. I didn’t move, didn’t help him navigate my face. His lips moved awkwardly to my nose, actually my nostril, and then
slipped from one corner of my lips to my mouth, which I held stiffly shut.

He laughed this breathy laugh. ‘Isis, I don’t like you, I love you.’

I burst into tears. He loved me. How could
he
love
me
? He held me close and let me cry. When I finally caught my breath, I asked, ‘Why?’ His answer would be
undermined by the fact that as far as he knew I was the only woman left. Wouldn’t a vegetarian love a hot dog if he were hungry enough?

He kissed me full on the mouth and I was lost for a second in his lips. Darkness magnified every sensation. I wasn’t distracted by a stray hair stuck to his forehead or the sound of the TV
in the background. The world had collapsed to the size of our lips and exploded in the way they moved together, gathering energy and electricity.

‘That’s not an answer,’ I said when his hands began to caress my body. He rolled me on my side and kissed the back of my neck.

‘I know I can’t say anything to convince you,’ he said. ‘No matter what I say: you’re beautiful and strong, or I love your white dreads, or you have the most
amazing way of surviving. Nothing I say will be enough and also nothing I say will be the whole truth. I ache for you and all I do is think about you. I don’t know why I like country music or
this pair of blue jeans. It’s something about the way they feel and something about how they make me feel.’ He snuggled me closer. ‘Does that make any sense?’

‘Yeah.’ I was filled with this sense of profound happiness that I don’t think I’d felt on the outside ever.

‘Why do
you
love me?’ he asked.

I should have anticipated this question, but I was completely unprepared. I wasn’t very good at expressing things like that. Important words always got muddled in my mind. ‘I guess
part of it is you saved me. You saved me from the snake.’ My body gave an automatic shiver at the word. ‘You save me every day in here with your calm, wise ways.’

He laughed at that description.

‘Shut up. You do,’ I said and leaned in for another kiss. ‘Doesn’t hurt that you’re gorgeous.’ I felt the muscles in his face shift, I hoped to a smile.
‘You are strong in a way that makes me feel safe even in this place. I wish . . .’ I paused. I didn’t want him to pull away. ‘I wish I knew more about you. Your history.
Your story before I met you.’

He sighed. ‘That doesn’t matter.’

But his saying that meant that it oh so did. I remembered the scars that he was careful to hide from me.

‘You know who I am now,’ he said.

‘But don’t you want to know—’

‘No,’ he quickly interrupted. ‘I know everything I need to know and tomorrow I’ll learn something new. Talking about it won’t change it. Won’t bring it back,
it will just . . .’

I understood. ‘Hurt,’ I finished his thought.

‘Yeah.’

We had long philosophical discussions where I listened more than talked. I felt like a fridiot that I didn’t know who Nietzsche (Mr ‘what doesn’t kill me,
makes me stronger’) was, or anything about Pascal’s Wager – the idea that it was best to believe in God because you’d have less to lose if you’re wrong. Or something
like that. Chaske told me that his mom liked to talk about this stuff. I squirrelled these tiny slips away. He wondered how the world worked, how the mind thought and what happened when we died.
I’d always been too tangled up in the day-to-day stuff. My world had to shrink to the size of a bunker to get me to think big.

Every night we’d gather with Tate like we did in my room on our two-month anniversary for story time. When we’d finished
To Kill a Mockingbird
, we took turns telling stories
to one another. Tate recounted classic action-adventure series. He’d change the names and fill in the blanks when he forgot the plot. We recognized James Bond, Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne and
Neo. Tate always lingered too long on describing the damsels in distress. I’d have to throw something at him when he detailed sexy stuff.

I started to tell one of my favourite movies,
The Shining
, but I couldn’t do it. We’d lived through enough horror stories for a lifetime. So instead I decided to make them
laugh. My stories were rambling and ridiculous, but Tate would quote one of my punchlines and chuckle for days after.

Chaske shared folktales that his grandfather told him. My favourite was about why the North Star stands still. I loved to hear him tell it.

‘One brave boy loved to climb,’ Chaske would start. He’d sit cross-legged, a hand resting on each knee. ‘He found the highest peak. He wanted to make his father proud so
he decided he would find a way to hike to the very top. It wasn’t easy because there was no path, no way to scale the sheer cliffs. He found a tunnel in the mountainside that sloped down and
then up. He climbed in the dark with rocks slipping free and falling into the hole below. He was not afraid of climbing in the open air, but he was fearful of the dark space.’

About this far into a story, Tate would fidget, but Chaske sat straight and filled the empty space with the sound of his voice. ‘He wanted to stop but when he turned back he discovered
that rocks now blocked his path. The only way to go was up. He followed a faint light and eventually emerged on the tip-top of the mountain. When his dad spotted him, he was very sad because he
knew there was no way back down. His dad turned his son into a star. He became the North Star. A star that stays in one place to guide travellers.’

‘Onwards and upwards,’ I said, repeating the phrase Chaske often used. I was sitting right next to him, but not touching.