The One Safe Place (13 page)

“Need a ride?” somebody said.

It was Roman.

“He was on his way back from the city,” Malloy explained. “Only I didn’t know that then. He asked me where I came from and who my parents were. Then he said he would take me somewhere they could keep me safe while they looked for Mom and Dad. Instead, he brought me here.”

He paused. “I know they’re still out there. I know it.”

Luke squeezed his shoulder quickly. “Of course they are! And they’ll find you, any day now. Right, Devin?”

Devin nodded.

“You’ll be back in your teepee, eating gophers and getting wisdom and all that Nomad crap,” Luke said. “You’ll see.”

“Gophers are really good,” Malloy said, immediately cheering up. “Especially when they’re all crispy . . . little bit of sage . . . you should try ’em.” He looked from Luke to Devin. “When Mom and Dad do get here, I bet they take you away too. I won’t leave without you guys.”

“Good to know, my man,” Luke said, a touch sadly. “Good to know.”

“You don’t think Malloy’s parents are really going to come get him, do you?” Devin asked Luke.

“If I was going to quantify the level of certainty, I’d estimate the probability would be infinitesimally low.”

Devin just stared at him.

“No,” Luke said. “No, I don’t think they’re going to come get him. I doubt they’re even still alive.”

They were talking in Luke’s room. It was so untidy that it was a while before Devin could even locate the bed underneath all the clothes and snack wrappers. Pieces of paper lay scattered everywhere. Even the desk was a mess, with one entire edge splintered and ragged. The minute Luke sat down at it, he began automatically plucking at the wood, his fingers nervous and busy.

Devin noticed a smallish, framed photograph among the scraps of paper on the desk. It showed a smiling man in a sailor’s cap and a woman with sleek blond hair by his side.

“Is that your mom and dad?”

Luke nodded. “On our yacht,” he said with a curl of his lip. “The good ship
Swindler.
”

“You’ve seen the ocean?”

“Sure,” Luke said, his fingers tugging frenetically at the edge of the desk.

“Listen, don’t tell Malloy what I said about his parents,” he said abruptly.

Devin shook his head. “No, ’course not.”

“Believing they’ll come back keeps him happy, and Malloy, well, he cheers everyone up.”

“I won’t say anything,” Devin assured him.

“The trouble is,” Luke continued, “he won’t stop nagging me to help him escape. He doesn’t want to be adopted. He doesn’t think he needs it.”

“I was wondering about that,” Devin said. “I don’t see any fences in this place. So what’s stopping us from leaving?”

Luke gave him a horrified look. “I didn’t tell you?” He rubbed his forehead, very agitated. “I’m losing it, I swear. My mind’s so scrambled . . . Look, whatever you do, don’t try to leave.”

The reason there were no fences, Luke explained, was that the Home was surrounded by twelve posts. Anyone trying to pass them would activate a laser. It wasn’t strong enough to kill; it would simply disable with extreme pain. A week after Luke arrived at the Home, another new kid tried to cross. The pain was so bad she couldn’t even scream; she just lay there on the ground until the staff came to pick her up.

“Malloy wants me to figure out a way to get around the posts. I’ve been trying, but so far, no luck.”

Devin bent and picked up one of the many pieces of paper scattered on the floor. It was covered with mathematical equations, all of them tiny and set close together. They filled up the whole page, even the margins, and Devin could see that they’d been written by someone pressing down so hard on the paper that it was half curled up from the pressure.

“Does this have to do with figuring out the posts?”

Luke glanced over uneasily. “No, that’s nothing. I just play with numbers, that’s all. When I get stressed, you know?”

Devin’s eyes swept over the room. There were hundreds of similar pages.

“It’s hard to turn off,” Luke said. “Sometimes I’m up all night doing it. But it’s just math, you know? It’s not like I’m going crazy or anything.”

It was particularly hot that evening—a dry, stifling heat that seemed only to intensify as darkness fell. A few children were in the pool. They stood up to their chests, not moving, trying to stay cool. Devin joined them. He had never been in such deep water. The stream at the farm had only come just above his knees, and it had felt different against his skin.

“The water’s pure,” his grandfather had told him. “It comes straight from the heart of the earth. You can drink it all your life and never get sick.”

Devin thought of the colored pebbles at the bottom of the stream and how he had fished for them and then arranged them in lines so they would make songs, the notes trickling golden like the stream itself.

Luke and Malloy were in the pool too, as well as Missie and Karen, who seemed to be friends. The scornful girl from the common room was with them, her hair pinned up carefully on top of her head. Devin had found out from Luke that she was named Vanessa. A chunky, sandy-haired boy with a blank expression stood a little way apart, swirling the water slowly with one hand.

The only light came from two or three low torches planted nearby. The water was as dark as oil, and odd, flickering shadows traveled across the surface. The children stood in inky circles that slowly spread out to join one another and rang softly with a strange reluctance. Devin thought they sounded almost sticky.

“I’m so hot,” Missie complained. “Even the water’s hot. Why can’t they make the water cool?” She flung her arms out, splashing.

“It’s better if you keep still,” Karen said.

“I know that, Smarty Pants,” Missie said.

“Yeah, sorry.” Karen whispered. “Sorry.”

Missie splashed again.

“Stop doing that!” Vanessa cried.

“Why? You scared your hair will get wet?”

“You are so immature,” Vanessa said, in a superior tone of voice.

“You okay, Malloy?” Luke asked. Malloy’s mouth was turned down. Little beads of water clustered in his hair and shimmered slightly in the dim light.

“Just thinking about being in the Dream,” Malloy said. “I always dream about eating. My whole body is begging to stop but my mouth won’t let me. It makes me feel . . . ashamed. And what I’m eating makes it worse. It’s all weird, disgusting stuff. Liver and seaweed dumplings and deep fried giblets and swan tongue sandwiches with the crusts cut off . . .”

“Coming from someone who likes to eat gophers, that’s a bit much,” Luke muttered.

“What’s it really like, being in the Dream?” Devin asked, although a big part of him didn’t want to know. The kids looked at each other and nobody answered.

“It hurts,” Missie said, finally. “Sometimes more, sometimes less. Afterward I want to punch things and kick people and stamp on ants.”

“Poor ants,” Karen murmured, “They haven’t done anything.”

“They run around, don’t they? They exist.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Karen said feebly.

Malloy interrupted them. “Being in the Dream is weird. It’s confusing, mainly. You dream that you’re in a room, only you don’t know where. Except, of course, you’re not really there at all. Instead you’re running around the Home acting weird.” He paused. “That’s just the start of it, though, cuz while you’re dreaming that you’re there in that room, you dream you fall asleep and then the really bad dreams come. The really nutso ones. They’re like . . . dreams within the Dream. And they’re terrible.”

“I had this one dream,” Luke said. “It was about animals. Or parts of animals. Their heads. I’d killed them, and cut their heads off and stuck them all over the wall. They were stuck there, but in the dream, I was stuck too. I was sitting in a chair and I couldn’t move any part of my body at all. All the animals were looking down at me. Some looked like they were screaming, others just looked . . . sad. Like they knew I’d murdered them.”

“My dream doesn’t sound that creepy, but it was,” Karen said timidly. “I dreamed I was knitting a scarf.”

Missie rolled her eyes. “I wish I dreamed I was knitting.”

“But it was horrible,” Karen protested. “I couldn’t stop. I’d been knitting the scarf for ages and ages, fifty years or a hundred, maybe. I’d started making it for a little boy but the little boy died. I don’t know how I knew that, but you just know things in dreams, don’t you? He’d died, but I kept on knitting the scarf for him. It was very long. I looked down and it stretched all the way to the door and I could see it curling around down the corridor. And . . . and it was wet.” Karen’s voice dropped very low, almost to a whisper. “It was all wet with crying.”

“When I say it out loud,” she continued, “it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s the feelings, you know? All the dreams have such terrible feelings . . .”

A deep silence fell over the children.

“That’s nothing!” Malloy burst out. “I’ll tell you what’s really creepy.”

The others all looked at him apprehensively. Devin wasn’t sure he wanted to hear about another bad dream.

“People who can fart the alphabet!” Malloy spluttered. “I mean, that’s just wrong.”

There was a stunned silence and then a wild splashing as Missie and Karen shrieked with laughter and Luke dived on Malloy, trying to dunk his head under water. Even Vanessa smiled, although she pretended not to. Only the sandy-haired boy seemed unaffected. He stayed quite still, his face expressionless.

When the hubbub had died down, Devin asked the others about the silent boy. His name was Pavel, and he’d stopped speaking about a week earlier.

“He’s really close to being Spoiled,” whispered Missie.

“I heard that word before,” Devin said. “What’s being Spoiled?”

“Shhhh. Not so loud.”

Vanessa waded across the pool and climbed out. Devin watched her pale body disappearing into the dark.

“She used that word too. ‘Spoiled.’ ”

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Luke advised. “She thinks she knows everything. She thinks she’s so grown up, but she’s not.”

“She curls her hair,” Karen informed him. “Only she forgets to do the back of it.”

“But what is being Spoiled?” Devin persisted. “What’s it actually mean?”

No one replied.

“Being in the Dream . . . ,” Malloy began unwillingly. “It does something to you. It messes you up. After a certain nu
mber of visits, you go . . . strange.”

“When kids first arrive here,” Luke said, “they’re normal. But little by little they start to change.” He glanced around. “It’s true of all of us, whether we want to admit it or not. After a while you go completely weird. Like Pavel. And Jared, the boy with the teddy bear. And Megs.” He paused. “Ansel too. He’s different, not in control . . .”

“What happens to you after you’re Spoiled?” Devin asked.

“Everyone gets adopted,” Karen said, “sooner or later. Only I hope with me it’ll be sooner. I’ve been here for three months. Jared’s been here ten months. Megs has been here for ages.”

“How many visits does it take to get Spoiled?” Devin asked.

Luke’s arms were wrapped around himself so tight it looked as if he might crack his chest.

“Depends on the kid. Twenty seems about . . . average.”

Devin stared at him, thinking about what Vanessa had said. He wondered how many visits to the Place Luke had made. But the urge to ask questions had suddenly left him.