The Dead-Tossed Waves (35 page)

“We should keep walking,” Catcher says.

It’s as if his voice jerks me out of a trance; as if I’ve been staring at Elias for a hundred years. I shake my head and step away from him. My cheeks begin that slow embarrassed burn and I glance at Catcher, wondering if he notices. But he’s silent. His face betrays nothing at all.

We trudge down the paths in the thick summer air, choosing which branches to take and which gates to pass through based on the code I figured out in my mother’s book of sonnets. Always walking toward the light—following the paths that will lead us to Sonnet XVIII, the lines written in the lantern
room of the lighthouse. The afternoon threatens us with thunder, the sky closing in around us, yet it barely rains and our canteens start to run dry. But Catcher doesn’t want to leave Cira to forage in the Forest for a stream and with the threat of the Recruiters behind us, we keep walking.

At first I feel uncomfortable being near Cira. Catcher hovers around her, helping her when she can’t keep up. She seems to stumble along the path not seeing anything, and I wonder if she really has given up or if it’s the blood infection taking over, making her lose touch.

I can’t stop wondering how much time she has left. If she’ll ever recover.

And then finally the silence between us is too much and I drop back, taking her hand from Catcher’s and holding it tight in my own.

“Tell me again how it will be okay,” she says, her voice hoarse.

There’s so much of her missing, so much of who she used to be—the spark and energy. “It’ll be okay,” I tell her, hoping she believes my words even if I’m unsure of them.

She stops walking, causing me to stop as well, and smiles. She squeezes my hand and I realize how bony her fingers have become, how narrow her wrists. Tendrils of her hair are loose and limp around her face. Freckles scream against her pale skin.

I glance down the path to where Elias and Catcher keep pushing forward. I tug on her to keep going but she holds me back. “I know the infection’s bad,” she says. She has to catch her breath as she talks and it hits me again how much effort this whole ordeal’s been for her. “I’m not even sure if I’ll make it to … wherever.”

Her eyes are glassy. I swallow and shake my head. I feel the superhero pendant against my chest and I pull the necklace over my head. I step closer to her, reaching around her neck as I fasten the clasp. “You’re wrong,” I tell her. “Cira, don’t—” But she cuts me off by pressing her lips to my cheek, soft and dry.

“I’m dying, Gabry,” she says, pulling away. Tears flood her eyes. “I’ll never fall in love. I’ll never have a family—get to be the kind of mother I always wanted. I’ll never know what it feels like to be everything to someone.” She smiles softly. “I’ll never even kiss a boy. Tell me what it’s like?” Her voice is nothing, quieter than a whisper.

I shake my head. I refuse to admit that what she’s saying can be true. That she has any reason to worry about whether she’ll survive. I don’t even want to think about it but she puts her fingers on my wrist and says, “Please,” and I see the pleading in her eyes. How desperately she wants to know.

I nod and think back to the night at the amusement park with Catcher. I think about the evening on the beach with Elias. I don’t know what to tell her, how to explain the feeling of wanting and yet being so scared it won’t happen. That moment when there’s no turning back and his lips land on yours. How different it can make you feel. So beautiful and needed and special.

I start walking down the path and she walks next to me, her hand in mine. “It’s wonderful,” I finally say. “And also a little weird-feeling. I mean, not knowing what to do and how it works.” A laugh bubbles up and it feels so refreshing after spending so long thinking about death and infection and the Mudo. “You worry that you’re doing something wrong,” I tell her. And then I lean closer and whisper, “I couldn’t stop wondering what the last thing I’d eaten was.” I smile as she giggles.

“I don’t want to hear the bad parts,” she says with a grin. “I only want you to tell me the good parts.”

And so I do. As we wade through the late-day heat I tell her all of it, forgetting that we’re in the Forest, that we’re being chased and aren’t sure of where we’re going. Just feeling like friends sharing an everyday afternoon walk.

W
e’re still giggling when I round a bend and see Catcher and Elias standing in front of a gate. Elias’s face is pale, his fingers drumming against his leg. I feel my smile falter; Cira’s hand goes limp in my own.

“What is it?” I ask them.

“Number eighteen,” Elias says. “X-V-I-I-I.”

“Oh.” I just form the word with my lips. I don’t have to pull out the book to know the lines of this poem, the sonnet my mother carved into the lighthouse the day she left. This is the last gate. My heart thrums a little longer as if measuring the beat of the words in my head. As I walk toward the gate, Cira falling in step behind me, I whisper the final line of Shakespeare’s eighteenth sonnet: “‘So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’”

Beyond the gate the path continues, just like all the other paths. The fences on either side, the Forest beyond. The Mudo rising and stumbling toward us.

I walk faster and faster, excitement building inside. My mother could be at the end of this path. And so could my history. So could all the answers. My heart hammers harder, my legs twitch and I break into a jog. Behind me I can hear the others as they follow but I don’t bother looking back.

Until I come to another gate. Beyond it I can see the shadows of buildings, the fence opening up as it did for the last village. And suddenly I’m too terrified to take another step. Sweat slides down my cheeks, along my neck and between my shoulders. I’m afraid this village will be like the one before: empty and dead.

Elias comes to a stop behind me. I can hear him trying to catch his breath. I swallow and turn to look at him. Even though we’ve both been running, his face is pale. He’s not looking at me but at the gate. His fingers tremble slightly as he rubs them over his head.

I have this crazy giddy moment when I just want to laugh at us standing here after everything we’ve been through. Neither one of us willing to take that next step. What would happen if we just stayed here forever, never moving?

And then, as if the Forest is exhaling, pushing me forward, I unsheathe my knife, put my hand on the gate and pull it open.

I walk into the village slowly, my head cocked to the side to hear voices or moans—anything to let me know there’s someone or something here. I wait for some memory to trigger, for familiarity to wash over me, but it doesn’t. In front of me to the left sits the hulking burned shell of a building, charred stone walls toppled, decaying beams jutting out at awkward
angles. Well beyond that I can see the outlines of small houses huddled together in the shade of a few tall trees with what looks like platforms strewn through them.

Behind me the Mudo moan against the fences and the wind rustles the leaves in the trees. Crickets chirp and hum in the heat. I walk slowly past an old graveyard, my feet following a well-worn path that’s more of a rut in the ground.

Nothing stirs. No one shouts or comes running. The village seems empty and my chest begins to ache with fear that we’ve hit another dead end. I walk a little farther, wondering if I should call out. I pause by what’s left of the charred building. It clearly used to be huge, an old cracked bell lying in the midst of blackened stones and scorched timbers.

My foot slips on a board and a few rocks fall and shuffle, the noise barely anything but enough that I hold my breath. Something stirs off to my left. I turn and crouch, gripping my knife tightly.

A large black dog lying in the sun lifts its head from the grass by one of the gravestones and examines us. I wait for him to bark or growl but he doesn’t. Instead he lumbers to his feet, his muzzle sprinkled white with age. He approaches slowly, his tail thumping in a lazy circle, and I hold a hand out to him. He sniffs and pushes his nose against my fingers.

I let out the breath I’d been holding. He clearly knows people, is obviously cared for. That means there must be someone else alive in this village and my heart begins to thunder in my body. The dog yawns as I scritch his ears, his tail beating against my legs.

Just then Catcher and Cira make it to the gate and start walking toward me. Before Catcher can get too close I hear the vibrations of a growl deep inside the dog.

“It’s okay, boy,” Catcher says, kneeling and holding out a hand.

The dog nudges me away from Catcher, standing between us, the hair on his neck rising as he sniffs the air. I don’t understand his change, his instant dislike of Catcher. Suddenly he begins to bark, deep long brays that shatter the stillness of the afternoon. I cringe at the sound and instinctively look around for some place to hide, some place to get away from the dog.

I lose my footing and something shifts in the ruins of the old building, a pebble falling through the debris. I hear voices and my breath catches, my throat suddenly dry. Beside me Elias tenses, pulling out his knife. I see someone moving through the shadows, skirts swishing around her legs as she picks her way through the crumbled mess. She’s caught off balance, something large and bulky wrapped in her arms, and she stumbles.

Sunlight breaks through a hole in what used to be the roof and I see her face. I see her white and black hair. The wrinkles around her eyes that remind me of her smile. “Mother,” I say, the word gathering from every corner of myself and bursting into hot joy. I feel tears prick my eyes; just seeing her infuses me with the feeling that everything is now going to be okay.

She looks up and her breath catches as she sees me standing at the entrance, the grass waving and bowing around my calves. “Gabrielle.” I don’t hear her but see the way her lips move, the look of love on her face. I can’t help but smile.

She drops the book she’s holding and it breaks against a pile of rocks, thin delicate paper exploding into the air, drifting around her like feathers.

And then she’s running through the debris and I’m running to her and finally her arms are around me. She still
smells like salt and the ocean and the lighthouse. I bury my face against her shoulder as she pulls me tighter. I can hear her heart. It’s the feeling of home. Of safety and comfort and love and memories.

She pushes me back, her palms on my cheeks. She stares into my face, searching to see if I’m okay. Her eyes are bright and I feel tears already coursing down my cheeks.

“My baby,” she whispers before holding me tight again. It feels so right to be in her arms, as though I’m a kid whose mommy can fix anything.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have—” she starts to say.

“I know,” I cut her off. “I’m sorry too. I love you. I’ve missed you.” I’ve been waiting so long to say those words, to put right the things I told her the night before she left.

I hear her draw a shuddering breath. I can feel the smile breaking across her face and I want to laugh, giddy with relief to be with her again.

Something flutters against my leg and I pull back to look at it. It’s a page from the book she’d been carrying, onionskin-thin and yellow. There are faded words typed down the center and then pinched black scrawl in the margins. I squint, trying to decipher what it says, but none of it makes sense to me: