The Dead-Tossed Waves (21 page)

All seem to take me at my word except for Daniel, who just stares at me, the corner of his mouth turned up, his eyes narrowed. As the day wears on and patrols rotate off the beach to come inside and dry off, Daniel lingers the longest. But thankfully we’re never alone together.

As Catcher’s third night of infection nears, I refuse to even consider that he’s turned. I can’t stop thinking about him. I should be there—I promised him I’d be there—and I feel as though I’ve failed him again. The fear and worry roll through me like the thunder through the sky, until I have to get away from the Militia and from Daniel’s curious stares.

I steal away for a moment, pretending a need to check the lantern, and I climb to the top of the lighthouse and lean out over the railings toward the ruins.

The wind whips my hair around my head, strands plastered to my face by the rain, and I’m instantly soaked. Of course I can see nothing—the encroaching night is only darkness and water. Out there somewhere Catcher is dying. And he’s alone.

Unless Elias is there waiting. Planning to turn him into one of their jawless Mudo.

Guilt and anguish crush me, making me feel physically weak and ill. My heart is breaking. I should be there; I promised him I’d be back and I wonder if he knows it’s the storm keeping me from him or if he thinks I’ve abandoned him. I want to sprint down the stairs and race to the Barrier. I want to dare the Militiamen here to follow me. To stop me.

But I don’t. I can’t help but think about Elias’s words the other night—that if Catcher truly cared he’d forbid me to take the risk to see him again. I kick at the railing, pain thrumming up my toe, furious at Elias for making me question Catcher’s feelings.

I press my hands to my face, not wanting to admit some small sense of relief about the storm. Glad that I have an excuse not to muster the courage to cross into the ruins again. Happy that I don’t have to face those fears tonight.

I remind myself that some infected people make it longer than others. It’s the end of his third day and the bite was small—Catcher has to have a fourth day. It’s what I have to believe so that I don’t crumble here to be washed away by the rain.

As the storm rages through the night I keep boiling water over the stove for the Militia; I make hot tea and fresh bread
and I try to pretend that somewhere out there a man I might have loved isn’t dying.

The Militiamen laugh. They slap one another’s hands and talk about their kills, sometimes whispering rude things that I wonder if they intend for me to overhear. Daniel is the worst. It’s like a holiday for them—rarely do they get to dispose of so many undead. Only the biggest storms dredge so many bodies up and toss them ashore.

I try to smile as the wind screams outside. I try to pretend that I’m like them, that I believe in what they do. That the Mudo are only monsters. But then I think about Catcher and all my beliefs haze at the edges. I can’t think of him like that; I refuse to accept that he could be like the other Mudo and that some part of him won’t remember me.

The storm doesn’t break the next day. If anything it intensifies. The Militiamen are even starting to look a little haggard. I pretend to make trays for my mother, brushing off any offers to help and polite inquiries into her health.

I carry the trays up the winding stairs into her room and I sit on the edge of her bed and I stare out the window into the storm-buffeted ocean, eating the food I prepared for her.

There’s no way Catcher will make it through the night. I know this as well as I know that there will never be a world without the Mudo. I feel hollow when I think of him. More than hollow.

Catcher will die alone. In an empty room and in an empty city. He’s the first and only boy I thought I could love, the first one who saw something in me worthy of attention. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to find anyone like him again—someone I’ve known for so long that trusting him feels like breathing.

A knock sounds at the door and I drop the tea I’ve been cradling. The scalding liquid splashes down my leg, the mug shattering on the floor.

I can already see the knob turning, can hear my name on their lips. I jump to the door, press my body against it and then ease my way through a small crack, closing it behind me. I try not to show that my leg stings from the burning water. My upper lip is already sweating with the effort of appearing relaxed and casual.

It’s Daniel, and I try to force out a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. He doesn’t step back to allow me to pass and so I’m crushed against the door. I can’t open it to give us space or he’ll see my mother’s empty bed and will know she’s not here.

“How’s your mother?” he asks, pretending he’s just being polite.

“She’s resting,” I tell him, willing him to believe my lie. I feel off center up here alone with him, and unable to figure out why he’s so intent on where my mother is. “All this noise, it hasn’t been good for her.”

He looks over my shoulder as if he’s hoping to be able to see through the wood. He nods. “I’m sure,” he says unconvincingly.

He doesn’t move and I’m afraid to leave him here alone. Afraid of his obvious suspicion. “The others,” I say, trying to appear calm and as though I’m not afraid of him. “They’ll be wondering where we are. The coffee must be low, I should go tend to it.”

Daniel smiles at me then, as if he’s indulging my whims. “Okay, Gabrielle,” he says. He stands there a moment longer, the air too heavy around us both. I can smell the beach on him, smell the Mudo. The scent tears at my throat, sinks into
my stomach, and I feel sick. I want to shove him away, to tell him to leave me alone. But instead I just clench my hands by my sides.

Finally he turns and walks slowly down the stairs, leaving me gasping on the landing as if I’d never breathed before, my fists shaking and my fingers numb.

Even though the sky clears that evening, the swollen waves still toss the Mudo against the shore, their bloated bodies like lost mounds on the beach. And so the Militiamen continue in their shifts, their pace less frantic but still as intense.

The lighthouse feels too close, too warm with all the men staying there. With Daniel and his glances and glares. I try to escape outside but they’re there as well. Walking the length of the shore, their axes and sickles ready for the next body. As the light hazes they gather wood and try to light fires that struggle to ignite and then pop and crackle, throwing weak halos onto the sand.

I escape upstairs, excusing myself to tend to the lamp. I coax it to life, wind the gears but don’t set it spinning just yet. I stare at the light wondering if Catcher will be alive to see it. Wondering if my mother will look for it on the horizon. Does anyone still care anymore about me and this light?

I drop the sliver of wood I used to light the lamp, its small flame fluttering through the air until it falls as a burning red ember. I’ve taken over my mother’s life, I realize. And suddenly I imagine my entire existence unfolding in front of me, ruled by the chimes announcing the tides, measured by spins of the lamp.

I see it all: waves crashing and stretching, the sun swapping
with the moon, blazing the horizon orange over and over again. The Forest tangles over the fences that are too old and too endless to maintain. The ruins crumble to nothing more than rubble, the coaster finally giving way to gravity as Vista gasps and chokes and tries to hold on until one day the lighthouse gears grind to a halt, no supplies from before the Return left to repair them. The Protectorate abandons the useless town that fades, forgotten, into the future.

And during all of it, at every tide, I’m here: standing alone on the gallery and waiting. For my mother, for the hope of Catcher and Cira. Every dusk I light the lamp that no one follows. Every high tide I decapitate the people-who-used-to-be—people like Catcher and Mellie—and I am safe and alone and old.

And there’s no one waiting for me, no one who knows me. No one to share my life and experiences with. It’s me and the ocean, the tides and the lighthouse and wave after wave folding time to the shore. Unlike Roger, there is no Mary to wash upon the beach. Unlike my mother, there’s no child to rescue from the Forest.

And now I understand what drove my mother back into the Forest, only to find me. What made her keep me to stave off the endless empty horizon. What made her want to forget and ultimately what caused her to remember.

I’m suddenly aware of how little I know about my mother’s time before me. I know she’s from the Forest. I know she left her village, fought her way to the ocean. I know she’s stronger than I could ever hope to be. That she created this life to raise me in the safety that she never felt growing up.

I know my mother loved but I don’t know what it felt like, other than that it caused her to want to forget. I know
she left Vista at some point—traveled to the Dark City and beyond—and yet something drew her back. But what about her dreams? What have I ever known about those?

It’s as though my blood has reversed its flow and runs backward through my body, I feel so keenly the loss of my mother in that instant. I want to crawl to her and have her tell me that it will be okay. That I’ll always be safe.

I want her to tell me that even though the world can change course in a week, it will always keep spinning and turning.

I trace my fingers over the gears of the lantern, the greasy teeth sliding sharp under my touch. I think about all the times my mother’s hands rested here as she looked out into the world.

I realize now that I have my own decision to make: I can accept what I see. I can set the lamp to spinning tonight and every night after, safe within the barriers I’ve constructed around myself.

Or I can risk everything: run for Catcher and take of his last moments what I can. Open myself up to the possibility of failure and pain.

I stare at the rain gasping against the windows of the lantern room. I think about how different my life would be if I never crossed the Barrier that night. If when I sat on top of that wall with Catcher I’d pulled him back.

I wish I were stronger. I wish I were my mother. But I’m not. I set the light spinning, the harsh light blinding me with every turn, my heartbeat thumping with it.

The Militiamen leave early the next morning. The beach is pristine, the sand smooth and clear. The waves are like ripples
in a bowl of water. As if the world has not raged for the past two days.

It’s always the strangest after a storm; how the world can be so dark and wind-whipped one moment, tossing Mudo endlessly ashore, and the next it’s as if the Mudo never existed. As if the world spun backward in time to the pre-Return days.

I go and stand at the water’s edge, let the saltiness lick at my toes. I think of walking into the tide, of just putting one foot in front of the other until it consumes me. I can see flutters against the surface at the surf line and I know the calm is just a mirage, that Mudo still tumble out in the depths.

The enormity of my decision last night crashes over me, the length and breadth of my life alone. I realize that I just want something to take into that solitude to hang on to: one last kiss from Catcher. One last embrace from Cira. Something to remind me that I could be loved, I could be a friend if I were willing to take the risk.