Away (18 page)

Rachel loved the firetales, imagining the people in them, and the places. On the night before they were due to reach The Property, he told a firetale about the greenhouse on Ms. Moore's property. Pathik and Fisher had heard it before, but Rachel never had, and neither, it seemed, had Daniel.

“I remember it was night when we first came close to the Line. The lights were on in the greenhouse, and none of us had ever seen anything so beautiful before. The glass glittered, and the orchids inside were lush jewels. The men with me, well, boys really, we were all so young then, were amazed. As was I, of course, but I was about to see something even more amazing.”

Pathik tilted his head, puzzled. He'd heard the firetale many times, but this part was new.

“She was wearing a blue dress.” Indigo's face softened and his eyes focused on something far away. “Her hair was golden, and floated around her face, lit like a halo. She came out of the greenhouse alone, and walked toward the meadow where we hid. She stood there in the night, and looked so lovely, and so lonely.”

“It was Ms. Moore,” Rachel breathed, entranced.

Indigo smiled and looked at Pathik. “It was,” he said softly. “It was your grandmother, Pathik. You'll get to meet her tomorrow.”

Pathik laughed. “We've already met, in a way. She was holding a stunner, and she looked pretty fierce. At least that's what I thought I saw from where I was cowering in the bushes.” He shared a look with Rachel, remembering the night she had tried to bring him the medicine his father needed.

She laughed too. “She's not someone you want mad at you.”

Daniel crinkled his brow. “She has a stunner? Those are illegal for civilians, or at least they used to be.”

That sent Rachel into a fit of giggles. “Ms. Moore doesn't think much of that law. You'll like her, Dad.”

“So, did you
know
right then that you loved her?” Fisher was rapt, picturing the young lady lit up in the night that Indigo had described.

Indigo grew sober. “I think I may have, Fisher. I think I may have known that, right then.”

“What happened to the boys that were with you, Indigo?” Rachel stirred the last of the fire's embers with a stick.

“Ah. The tale turns to a sad one there. Best to save that for some other night.” Indigo rose and stretched. “These old bones are ready for sleep.”

Fisher and Rachel had first watch together that night. As the rest of the camp dozed, they sat at the dying fire.

“Rachel.” Fisher spoke very softly. “Have you thought about what happens when we all get back to camp?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you and your parents plan to go with Indigo to Salishan?” Fisher kept his eyes on the forest.

“We'll go.” Rachel wondered if she was supposed to be telling people. “At least I think we will. What about you?”

Fisher shook his head. “Michael will stay, so I will stay.”

“Because you owe him somehow?”

Fisher looked at her then. “What do you mean?”

“Because he raised you. Or is it something else?”

“Like what?”

“Pathik seems to think you're ambitious.”

Fisher grinned. “He does, doesn't he?” He spent a moment scanning the darkness beyond the glow of the embers. “I can't blame him; I used to be.”

“Not anymore?”

Fisher didn't really answer her. “I'll stay in part because I owe Michael. But mostly, I'll stay because I fear Michael, or at least what Michael might lead us to. He wants us powerful, and without Indigo and Malgam here to lead, we may forget that power isn't everything.”

“You mean how he wants to use the gifts against the Roberts?”

“Yes.” Fisher motioned for Rachel to be quiet; he'd heard something. He stared at a particular spot at the meadow's edge for a minute. When he heard no more, he continued. “Michael doesn't think, sometimes. I asked him once how we would be different from Regs—I mean the Regs who abandoned us to our fate here—if we started using our gifts to kill. He didn't even understand the question.”

“But what can you do, if you stay?”

“I don't know.”

 

 

THE NEXT MORNING, they arrived at the campsite Pathik had stayed at while trying to make contact with someone at The Property. Rachel had stayed one night there, with him and the other boys on their way to his camp, after she Crossed.

Rachel eyed the black remains of the tiny fire they had made that night, and tried to believe it had only been a few weeks before. It seemed like she hadn't seen her mother or Ms. Moore for ages. She couldn't wait to get back to The Property.

“The hut is west of here.” Rachel knew that they had to go to the little brick maintenance hut at the edge of The Property to use the key. Jonathan had gone there with Ms. Moore's key when she had Crossed into Away. That seemed like so long ago.

It wasn't a long hike. The little hut squatted on the field, half on The Property, half Away. A bare line of dirt where the Line prevented the field grass from growing stretched out on either side. Rachel had seen it many times from the other side. There was a rusted padlock hanging from the door hasp. She imagined Jonathan had broken that lock, when he disarmed the Line for her to Cross.

She gasped when she saw it from where she stood now. There was no door. There was nothing but a blank brick wall.

“How do we get in to use the key?” Pathik stared at the brick wall.

“Of course,” said Rachel, mostly to herself. “Why would there be a door? They put this section up so fast, they didn't plan.”

Daniel stepped forward. “I'll claw those bricks out if I have to.”

“No need.” Indigo walked up to the hut. His fingers traced the bricks, testing the mortar. When he found what he was looking for, he took out his knife and began to chip away. The mortar turned to dust.

“What?” Fisher joined Indigo. “It's mud! Dried mud.”

“This is how we Crossed, the boys and I, years ago.” Indigo removed the brick he'd been working on. “We put them back with mud, just as you say, Fisher.”

In a very few minutes, there was a hole in the hut wall big enough for Rachel to squeeze through. She dropped to the floor inside the hut, and took the key Daniel handed through the hole to her. When she turned around she could see the door across from her, but when she reached out to touch it, the invisible barrier of the Line prevented her. It split the little hut in two.

“Do you see the key slot?” Indigo's voice came through the hole.

Rachel looked around. She was in what was basically an empty room. The only thing in it was a flat metal box, mounted to one side wall. The box spanned both sides of the Line, and it was lit on the top. Rachel walked over to it.

“Yes, I see it.” She could see where the key would fit, in a slot on her side. There was an identical slot on the other side. She stood, silent, staring at the box. She wondered what her father was feeling, outside the little hut, waiting to Cross back into his life, after so many years of thinking it was over. She wondered what Pathik and Fisher would think of her world. She thought of Ms. Moore, and how she would feel when she saw Indigo. But mostly, Rachel missed her mother, and she wanted to go home.

She shoved the key into the slot.

CHAPTER 16

R
ACHEL LED THEM to the guesthouse, taking care to stay out of sight of the greenhouse windows. It looked empty; Vivian must be working in the main house. Daniel looked around the front room of the guesthouse with an expression on his face that Rachel couldn't decipher. She looked too, trying to see what it was he might be seeing. The yellow glass lamp on the table, the crocheted throw on the couch. The book of short stories she and her mother had been reading when she left was still on the table near the lamp, a scrap of paper marking their place. It felt like she had been gone from this room, gone from all its comforts, for years instead of weeks.

“You lived here?” Daniel touched the back of the couch. He looked like he wanted to touch everything in the room, to soak up all of the years he had missed with his wife and child. He looked like he knew he could never do it.

“Yes.” Rachel went to him. “It wasn't bad.”

Daniel nodded. He kept his eyes on the couch.

“Where is your mother?” Indigo sounded uneasy. His eyes kept shifting toward the door.

“She's working. I'll go and find her. You should all stay inside until we come back.”

She turned to go, and ran straight into Pathik, who was wide-eyed, staring at a digim that was sitting next to the lamp. It was one of the few digimations they had; most of theirs were old-fashioned, static 3-D digims. But a few months before Rachel Crossed, Vivian had splurged on a new imager. The digim Pathik was staring at had been taken with that, and it showed Rachel laughing, on a loop. Her head came up, revealing her face, and she giggled at her mother, who had been practicing with the new imager. Then it repeated. The sound was off, but Rachel could remember Vivian laughing back, and telling her to stand still. They had had a lot of fun that evening.

“That's you.” Pathik looked from the digim to Rachel.

“Yes.” Rachel couldn't help smiling at the astonishment in his voice. Pathik smiled, and shook his head at his own incredulousness.

“What makes it move?”

Rachel shrugged. “I don't really know how it works.”

“Doesn't matter right now.” Fisher sounded irritated. “We have things to do.”

“He's right,” said Daniel. “You should go, Rachel. Be careful. If it's safe, bring your mom back here.”

Pathik was still staring at the digimation when she left.

THE GREENHOUSE WAS empty. She wished she had time to check on the orchid crosses she had germinated before she left, just to see if they were doing okay, but she didn't think she dared. It was close to lunchtime, so she was betting that Vivian and Ms. Moore were in the main house. Jonathan might be in town, or working on some other part of The Property.

She paused by some bushes, watching the front door of the main house and listening for anything coming toward the house from the long driveway. It all seemed quiet, as it would on any normal day. She ran to the grand porch and stood hugging one of the huge columns, as though it could hide her. Still nothing. There had once been a time when coming to the main house for any reason had made her almost this nervous, but that was back when she was afraid of Ms. Moore. She'd seen a different side of her before she Crossed. Now she was afraid
for
Ms. Moore. For all of them.

She took a deep breath and scurried from the column to the front door. She hit the intercom buzzer and waited. For a couple of moments nothing happened, but then she heard the hollow click that meant somebody was pressing the intercom on the other side of the door.

“Yes?”

It was her mother's voice.

“Mom.” The word stuck in her suddenly dry throat. She licked her lips and started to repeat it. Before she could, the door swung open, and there was Vivian, wide-eyed, tears already streaming down her cheeks. She grabbed Rachel and held her, rocking her where they stood. Rachel felt her own tears filling her eyes.

“Inside. Inside right now.” Ms. Moore appeared, and scooted them both off the porch. For some time there was nothing but sniffling and hugging.

“Oh.” Ms. Moore stood back from Rachel and Vivian and put her hand on her chest. “I swear I cannot take any more.” She smiled, and dabbed at her eyes with the linen handkerchief she always had in a pocket. “Let's all go into the parlor, shall we? We were just having some kalitea—I'll get another cup from the pantry.”