Reached (24 page)

CHAPTER 31

CASSIA

I
should go to see Ky.

I should stay here and work on the cure.

When I let myself really think, I am torn between two places and become lost, adrift in worry, accomplishing nothing and helping no one. So I
don’t
think, not that way. I think about plants and cures and numbers and I sort through the data, trying to find something that will bring back the still.

Comparing the lists isn’t as simple as it sounds. They don’t only include names of the things that the villagers and the farmers ate, but also the frequency with which the foodstuffs were consumed; the type of ground where they were cultivated, if they were plant or animal goods, and a myriad of other information that needs to be taken into account. Just because something was eaten often doesn’t mean that it provides immunity; conversely, something eaten only once is unlikely to produce immunity.

People go in and out—medics examining patients and returning to report, Oker and Xander doing their work, the sorters taking breaks, Leyna checking in to see our progress. I become accustomed to the comings and goings and eventually I don’t even look up when I hear the wooden door opening, closing; I barely notice when the mountain breeze slips in and rustles my hair.

A woman’s voice breaks into my concentration. “We thought of a few more things,” she says. “I want to make certain we included them all on our list.”

“Of course,” Rebecca says.

Something about the woman’s voice seems familiar. I glance up.

She looks older than her voice sounds, her hair completely gray and twisted in complicated braids and knots up high on her head. She has weathered skin and a gentle way of moving her hands, holding up a list on a piece of paper. Even from here, I can tell that it’s handwritten, not printed.

“Anna,” I say out loud.

She turns to look at me. “Have we met?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “I’m sorry. But I’ve seen your village, and I know Hunter and Eli.” I want to see Eli. But because I’ve been visiting Ky and working on the cure, I haven’t taken the time to go looking for the farmers’ new settlement, even though I know it’s not far from the main village. Guilt washes over me, although I don’t know if Leyna and others would let me go, even if I asked. I
am
here to work on the cure.

“You must be Cassia,” Anna says. “Eli has always talked about you.”

“I am,” I say. “Tell Eli that Ky is here, too.” Has Eli told Anna about Ky? From the flash of recognition in Anna’s eyes, I think that Eli has. “But Ky is one of the patients.”

“I’m very sorry,” Anna says.

I grip the edges of the rough-hewn table, reminding myself not to think too deeply of Ky, or I’ll break down and be no good to him at all. “Hunter and Eli—they’re fine?”

“They are,” Anna says.

“I’ve wanted to come see them—” I begin.

“It’s all right,” Anna says. “I understand.”

Rebecca moves slightly and Anna takes the hint. She smiles at me. “After I’m finished, I’ll tell Eli that you’re here. He’ll want to see you. And so will Hunter.”

“Thank you,” I say, not quite believing that I’ve met her. This is
Anna
, the woman who I heard about from Hunter and whose writings I saw in the cave. When she begins reading her list, I can’t tune out the sound of her voice.

“Mariposa lily,” Anna says to Rebecca. “Paintbrush flowers, but only in small quantities. It can be toxic otherwise. We used sage to season, and ephedra for tea . . .”

Words as beautiful as songs. And I realize why I knew Anna’s voice. It sounds the smallest bit like my mother’s. I pull a scrap of paper toward me and write down the names Anna says. My mother might already know some of them, and she will love to learn the others. I’ll sing them back to her when I bring her the cure.

“It’s time for you to rest for a little while.” Rebecca presses a piece of flatbread wrapped in cloth into my hand. The bread is warm and the smell of it makes my stomach rumble. They make their own food here. What would that be like? What if I had time to learn that, too? “And here,” she says, handing me a canteen. “You should eat while you visit him.”

She knows where I’m going, of course.

As I walk down the path to the infirmary, I breathe in the forest. Wildflowers grow in all the places where people don’t walk; purple and red and blue and yellow. The clouds, a stirring and startling pink, soar in the sky above the trees and peaks of the mountains. And a conviction comes to me in this moment:
We can find a cure.
I have never felt it so strongly.

When I arrive, I sit down next to Ky and look at him, touch his hand.

The victims of the Plague don’t close their eyes. I wish that they did. Ky’s look flat and gray; not the colors I’m used to seeing, blue, green. I put my hand on his forehead, feeling the smooth expanse of skin and the understructure of bone. He seems hot. Could he be infected? “He doesn’t look good,” I say to one of the medics on duty. “His nutrient bag is already empty. Do you have the drip turned up too high?”

She checks her notes. “This patient should still have one working.”

I don’t move. It’s not Ky’s fault something went wrong. After a moment she stands up and goes to get a new bag to attach to his line. She seems harried. There are only two medics on duty. “Do you need more help in here?” I ask.

“No,” she says sharply. “Leyna and Oker only want those of us with medical training to work with the still.”

After she finishes, I sit next to Ky and rest my hand on his, thinking of how alive he was on the Hill, in the canyons, and, for a moment, in the mountains. And then he was gone. I think of how I spent all that time puzzling out the color of his eyes when I started to fall in love with him. I found him changeable and difficult to put into one finite set, one clear description.

The door opens and I turn, expecting to see someone coming to tell me that my time’s up, that I need to return to work. And I don’t want to leave. It’s strange. When I was sorting, I felt certain it was the most important thing I could be doing. When I’m here, I know that being with the still matters most.

But it’s not someone from the research lab. It’s Anna.

“May I come in?” Anna asks. After she’s washed her hands and put on her face mask, she comes toward me. I stand up, ready to offer her my chair, but she shakes her head and sits on the floor near the bed. It’s strange to be looking down at her.

“So this is Ky,” she says. He’s turned on his side and she looks into his eyes and touches his hand. “Eli wants to see him. Do you think it’s a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” I say. It might be a good idea for Eli to come because then Ky could hear more than only my voice speaking to him, calling him back. But would it be good for Eli? “You would know better than I.” It’s hard to say, but of course it’s true. I only knew Eli for days. She has known him for months.

“Eli told me that Ky’s father was a trader,” Anna says. “Eli didn’t know his name, but he remembered that Ky told him his father learned to write in our village.”

“Yes,” I say. “Do you remember him?”

“Yes,” Anna says. “I wouldn’t forget him. His name was Sione Finnow. I helped him learn to write it. Of course, he wanted to learn his wife’s name first.” She smiles. “He traded for her whenever he could. He brought her those paintbrushes even when he couldn’t afford paint.”

I wonder if Ky can hear this.

“Sione traded for Ky, too,” Anna says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Some of the traders used to work with the rogue pilots,” Anna says. “The ones who flew people out of the Society. Sione did that, once.”

“He tried to trade to get Ky out?” I ask, surprised.

“No,” she says. “Sione executed a trade on another’s behalf to bring someone—his nephew—to the stone villages. We farmers never assisted in any of that, of course. But Sione told me about it.”

My mind is whirling.
Matthew Markham. Patrick and Aida’s son. He isn’t dead?

“Sione performed that trade with no fee, because it was a family member who wanted it. It was his wife’s sister. Her husband knew something was rotten in the Society. He wanted his child out. It was an extremely delicate, dangerous trade.”

She looks past me, remembering Ky’s father, a man I never met.
What was he like?
I wonder. It’s impossible not to picture him as an older, more reckless version of Ky: bright, daring. “But,” Anna says, “Sione managed it. He thought that the Society would prefer word of a death getting around to news of an escape, and he was right. The Society made up a story to explain the boy’s disappearance. They didn’t want rumors to spread about the vanishings, as they were called. They didn’t want people to think they could escape.”

“He risked a great deal for his nephew,” I say.

“No,” Anna says. “He did it for his son.”

“For Ky?”

“Sione couldn’t change who he was. He couldn’t Reclassify himself. But he wanted a better life for his son than he could provide.”

“But Ky’s father was a rebel,” I say. “He believed in the Rising.”

“And in the end, I think he was also a realist,” Anna says. “He knew the chances of a rebellion succeeding were slim. What he did for Ky was an insurance policy. If something went wrong and Sione died, then Ky would have a place in the Society. He could go back to live with his aunt and uncle.”

“And he did,” I say.

“Yes,” Anna says. “Ky was safe.”

“No,” I say. “They sent him out to the work camps eventually.”
I
sent him out to the work camps.

“But much later than they would have,” she says. “He likely lived longer where he was in the Society than he would have if he’d been trapped in the Outer Provinces.”

“Where is that boy now?” I ask. “Matthew Markham?”

“I have no idea,” Anna says. “I never met him, you understand. I only knew of him from Sione.”

“I knew Ky’s uncle,” I say. “Patrick. I can’t believe he would send his son out here to live where he knew nothing and no one.”

“Parents will do strange things when they see a clear danger to their children,” she says.

“But Patrick didn’t do the same for Ky,” I say, angry.

“I suspect,” Anna says, “that he wanted to honor Ky’s parents’ request for their child, which was that he have a chance to leave the Outer Provinces. And eventually, I’m sure Ky’s aunt and uncle didn’t want to give him up. Sending one son out would have almost killed them. And then, when nothing terrible happened for years, they would have wondered if they’d done the right thing in sending him away.” Anna takes a deep breath. “Hunter may have told you that I left him behind, along with his daughter. My granddaughter. Sarah.”

“Yes,” I say. I saw Hunter bury Sarah. I saw the line on her grave—
Suddenly across the June a wind with fingers goes.

“Hunter never blamed me,” Anna says. “He knew I had to take the people across. Time was short. The ones who stayed
did
die. I was right about that.”

She looks up at me. Her eyes are very dark. “But I blame myself,” she says. Then she holds out her hand, flexing her fingers, and I think I see traces of blue marked on her skin, or perhaps it’s her veins underneath. In the dim light of the infirmary, it’s hard to tell.

She stands up. “When is your next break?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“I’ll try to find out and bring Eli and Hunter to see you.” Anna bends down and touches Ky’s shoulder. “And you,” she says.

After she leaves, I lean down to Ky. “Did you hear all that?” I ask him. “Did you hear how much your parents loved you?”

He doesn’t answer.

“And I love you,” I tell him. “We are still looking for your cure.”

He doesn’t stir. I tell him poems, and I tell him that I love him. Over and over again. As I watch, I think the liquid dripping into his veins helps; there is a warming to his face, like sun on stone, when the light comes up.

CHAPTER 32

KY

H
er voice comes back first. Beautiful and gentle. She’s still telling me poetry.

Then the pain comes back, but it’s different now. My muscles and bones used to hurt. But now I ache even deeper than that. Has the infection spread?

Cassia wants me to know that she loves me.

The pain wants to eat me away.

I wish I could have one without the other, but that’s the problem with being alive.

You don’t usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have.

I don’t deserve either her love or this illness.

That’s a stupid thought. Things happen whether you deserve them or not.

For now, I’ll ride out the pain on the song of her voice. I won’t think about what will happen when she has to leave.

Right now, she’s here and she loves me. She says it over and over again.