Keystone (3 page)

The first thing is
breathing
. Eight other inhales and exhales, not counting mine, and I swear I can almost tell who’s who. Garrett is closest.

The second thing is two people, turning pages of different books. One shifts around and groans. That’s the Addo. The other makes a familiar rumble in his throat. It’s Garrett’s older brother, Sean, who I’ve always thought of as Garrett’s carbon copy, but with a few modifications. Someone else raps their knuckles on a tabletop, but I don’t know who it is. It can’t be Mrs. Reese. Her voice is further away and it sounds streaky as she singsongs broken lullabies to Iris. Iris’s tiny breath is shallow and even, already asleep. Mark and Brandon are shuffling and snapping cards on a table, half-heartedly accusing each other of cheating. I would bet they both are. I grin at that, even though my muscles feel like they’ve been lifting weights.

The second I stop concentrating on the sounds, my ears make another loud pop and all the noise is gone. I turn my head and it’s kind of a shock to only see Garrett lying on his back on the opposite bed, reading. I expect to see everyone I was just listening to, lined up against the wall, but the only one here is Garrett.

The room is tight, with only a narrow space between the beds and a door at our feet that leads out to wherever, and I realize I don’t even know where we are, besides in the house of one of the Veritas.

I don’t remember getting here, just being here. I try not to think of
why
I’m here at all, by thinking instead about how I can stretch out my arm and touch the edge of Garrett’s mattress. I think of how I’d rather be touching the hollow of his cheek.

And then he catches me watching him.

“Hey.” He grins and props himself up on an elbow, pushing his hair back behind one ear. That’s all it takes to remember my hair nest. It’s got to be a hundred times worse by now.

I should pull the sheets up over my head, but the way Garrett looks at me, I can’t look away. It’s like he’s climbing down some ladder he’s found in my eyes and he’s nowhere near the surface of me any more. Instead, he’s down deep inside me, where my stomach tickles and my heart spins and I swear he is lying there staring at
me
—the real me—the me that is made up of everything I believe in
.

And he smiles.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. I swallow to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

“Gross,” I croak.

He laughs.

“That means the Impressioning worked.” He tosses down his book and slides off his bed to crouch beside mine. He tips his head to align our eyes a little more. “You look like one of us now, Nalena. And
that
is a very beautiful thing.”

I smile, but I don’t want to sit up with him watching. My hair probably looks sandblasted in the back. I want to sneak away to the bathroom and brush my teeth and take a shower and then continue this moment…clean. But I can’t even remember how we got to this house, much less where the bathroom is. It’s got to be out the door, but to the right or the left? I can’t remember.

A shadow passes by in the hall and a voice, as tiny as a pebble, says, “Left.”

Garrett looks to the doorway, but the shadow is gone. He turns his gaze back to me with a smirk.

“Want me to help you up?” he asks. I shake my head against the mattress.

“You could just tell me where the bathroom is.”

He cocks an eyebrow, puzzled by my answer, but since there’s no way I want to call even more attention to my severe lack of pretty, I say, “Can you give me directions, and then just turn your back really quick?”

Both his eyebrows shoot up in recognition and he chuckles. He makes a show of turning toward the wall, a big smile across his face. “Go left out the door. It’s at the end of the hall. Are you sure your legs are up for it this time?”

Before he can say anything else, I scramble off the bed. I shove myself onto my feet, positive that my legs will work this time. They can’t let me down twice. But the minute I’m up, my head goes spiny and I plop in a heap on the floor. I roll over onto my back with a groan.

It’s not bad enough that Garrett’s face is suddenly hanging over me, or that he’s laughing, but just to make it a complete embarrassment, the doorway fills up with Reese’s. Sean’s the first one there.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Garrett says. “She was just getting up and fell over.”

Mark appears behind Sean, taking a break from chewing on a banana to say, “Standing isn’t supposed to be an extreme sport, Nali.”

“Jeez, Nali.” Brandon peers at me from behind his brothers. “You look like you just got spit out.”

“Manners, gentlemen,” Sean says. He might look like Garrett, but Sean sounds just like Mr. Reese used to. So much so that Mark drops his banana down at his side and does a hard swallow. Brandon studies a spot on the floor. But before they can wilt too much, Sean adds, “I don’t remember either of you looking even half that good after Impressioning.”

He tops it off with a slap to the back of each of his little brother’s heads. Both boys revive, shielding themselves, and then Mark goes back to eating his banana and Brandon folds his arms over his chest, looking down at me with a smirk.

“Oh yeah I did.” Brandon insists. “I looked a
lot
better.”

Mrs. Reese appears in the door. Seeing me on the floor, she gasps and pushes her sons aside.

“What are you doing? Don’t just stand there, guys!” she says. “Help her up! Are you all right, Nalena?”

Mrs. Reese’s eyes are puffy and I wonder if she knows I could hear her crying as she sang to Iris. She still gives me an everything’s-going-to-be-okay smile that I believe. Garrett jumps up and the two of them pull me back onto my feet. I’m still dizzy, but now my cheeks are flaming too.

Brandon eyes me up and down.

“Whoa. You look like you belong in a zoo,” he says.

“Jeez, shut up all ready!” Sean whacks the second-youngest Reese a little harder this time and Garrett nods his approval to his older brother. I’m sure I’m eggplant-colored in the candlelight.

“Okay, that’s enough, boys!” Mrs. Reese growls. “Mark, Brandon...get out of here. Go play with Iris or something. Garrett, Sean, you go too. I’ve got her.”

Garrett hands me off and I’m grateful. Mrs. Reese gives me a fleeting smile as she half guides and half drags me to the bathroom across the hall. Every few steps, my knees buckle and Mrs. Reese and I both say, “Whoa!” as she catches me and gets me straight again. Each time, Garrett calls from down the hall, asking if we need help, and each time Mrs. Reese insists, in stronger and stronger tones, that we’re fine. I murmur a thank-you in her ear and she smiles at me.

“I know how it is. I learned with the boys…they don’t care. Once they’re done Impressioning, they just get up and go, business as usual, no matter how they look or what they smell like,” she says. “But us girls, we’ve got to get cleaned up to feel good.”

I wince. “Yeah. I’m sorry I stink.”

“Oh honey,” she laughs. “I have four boys. You don’t even know what stink is.”

Once we get into the bathroom, Mrs. Reese lets go of me and I lean against the counter. She frowns into the mirror, rubbing at the puffy spots under her eyes.

“So,” she says to me from her reflection, “do you think you can handle the shower on your own or do you need help?”

“Oh no, I’ll be great.” I blush. I really like Mrs. Reese, but still. Even if I bust off all my teeth on the edge of the tub, I’ll be great.

“Ok, then, the bad news.” She winces as she grins. “We’re short on clothes at the moment, so all we’ve got is an extra pair of the Addo’s sweats for now. I’m still hoping Nok will be able to get us clothes for the Memory this afternoon.”

“The Memory?”

Mrs. Reese puts her hand to her forehead with a sigh.

“I’m sorry, Nalena. I forget that you don’t know all of this.” She takes a seat on the lid of the toilet. “The Memory is our version of a funeral. One of the Alo will come and write the memories and we’ll get to say our good-byes to your mom and Basil before the Addo blesses them.”

“We get to say our goodbyes…” My voice trails off in my throat and then Mrs. Reese’s face crumbles. She sniffles behind her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “This is the worst part. I know that.
I know it.
But it’s so hard to believe that losing him…them…that losing either of them will ever be okay.”

“It won’t,” I say. My own lip trembles. Mrs. Reese laughs a little like she’s trying to stop her tears.

“No, no…you don’t understand, Nalena.” She wipes her eyes dry and gets to her feet. “In a few hours, we won’t miss them anymore. Not at all and never again.”

I can’t imagine what Mrs. Reese means, but she smiles like it’s the absolute truth, right before slipping out the door.

I stand in the shower and listen to the conversations going on in the house, until my strength returns. I can hear Brandon whispering to Mark that he can’t wait until they don’t have to share a room with Addo, since our Wise Man snores. Sean sounds so serious, talking to his mother about something the Addo wants to give him. The Addo checks in with Garrett, asking how I am doing. Garrett says,
I still can’t believe she died
and the Addo tells him,
What’s more impressive is that she came back so quickly.

I lean back against the tile shower wall. I died. I let the water race down my body. I died and came back. My mother said I had things to do. But right now, all that it seems to mean is putting one foot in front of the other.

And my first step is to get out of the shower.

It seems like a good plan, until the second I get out and spot the stack of clothes Mrs. Reese left on the sink. What I see kind of ruins everything. Addo’s extra sweats are neon orange and, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it, but they are Addo-sized.

I put them on anyway, but the sweatshirt hangs off me and I’ll need suspenders if I plan on keeping the pants on. I try everything I can think of to make them fit better and look decent—tying and folding and scrunching—but there’s just no way to make miles of Hunter Orange fleece work. Although the Addo usually wears gray sweats, with his pant legs pulled up over his kneecaps and white knee socks poking out of his sandals, I’ve never seen him in orange sweats and maybe this is why. This outfit makes the Addo’s usual ensemble look like stylish, formal attire.

“Yikes,” Sean says the minute I walk back into the bedroom. He’s sitting with Garrett on the bed across from mine. Mark and Brandon have made themselves comfortable on my side. “At least we don’t have to worry about losing you in the dark.”

“That’s not going to work,” Garrett says, shaking his head as he makes room for me to sit beside him. “We’re definitely going to have to do something about that.”

“Pronto,” Brandon agrees. I drop onto the spot beside Garrett, wishing I could crawl under the bed instead. Garrett is in the same jeans and black tee that he wore here, but he still looks like he just stepped off a billboard. I could stare at him all day. And all he’s got to look at is me, minus hair tools and trapped inside yards of nuclear-colored fleece.

“We’ll find out when Nok’s collecting again and have him get you something... else.” Garrett smiles.

Sean taps his lip. “It probably won’t be anytime soon.”

“Why? What is The Fury doing?” I ask, but I’m afraid to hear the answer, that maybe there have been more ambushes, more raids, more death—while we’ve been in hiding. It’s bizarre that The Fury, made up of people so self-centered that they usually wander off to find a good time instead of fighting for their cause , have somehow organized and become an actual threat.

But Garrett says, “Nothing, for now. They seem to have pulled back, but we’ve lost so many, we’re not even sure who is left out there. We’re all on high alert. Nok is limiting his trips, as a precaution.”

“What do you know about the Veritas?” Sean asks me. I shake my head and add a shrug. It feels like I don’t know anything about anything anymore, but Sean lights up with the opportunity to educate me. Garrett settles in beside me and I can’t help but grin as Sean hops off the bed, his hands exploding in the air with excitement. But the youngest two Reese’s don’t enjoy Sean’s excitement like I do.