Away (2 page)

“Reparations?” Rachel crinkled her brow at Pathik. “What does that mean?”

“To provide compensation, to make amends, to—”

“Oh, I know what it means. What does it
mean,
though?” Rachel shook her head at Pathik's grin. Sometimes he could be exasperating.

“It means what it sounds like. You can ask Jab to do something, or even to give you something of his, to try and make up for what he did.” Pathik grinned even wider at the look on Jab's face.

Rachel didn't think any of it was funny. “Can't I just say ‘apology accepted' and leave it at that?”

Pathik quickly grew serious. “That's what usually happens, although there is a traditional way to say it. I think actually naming reparations was something that was done long ago. At least I don't remember anybody naming reparations recent—”

“What's the traditional response?” Normally, Rachel would have been fascinated by the details of how society functioned Away. At least she would have when she was still safe on The Property, like she had been less than two weeks ago. Right now, all she wanted was to get Jab out of her sight.

“We say: ‘I ask only that you remember this and do better,'” said Pathik.

Rachel looked up at Jab. She knew she should just say the phrase and have done with it, but he looked so wretched. She tilted her head up at him, watching him through narrowed eyes. After what he'd done to her, she wanted his misery to last just a little while longer.

“Pathik. Rachel.” Nandy called their names quietly from a few yards away. “You're both to come.”

Pathik looked to be sure Rachel was coming and hurried to Nandy. When she saw the look on Pathik's face, Nandy immediately reassured him.

“All is well—Malgam's not worse. In fact, he was the one who sent for you.”

“I couldn't tell,” said Pathik. He hadn't tried to scan Nandy for emotion; as all the Others did, he avoided using his gift on people he knew, unless he was practicing and had permission. But even without trying, he had felt something from her; her emotions were big lately, because Malgam had been so close to dying. Without focusing on her, he hadn't been able to tell if it was joy or anguish.

“I imagine he wants to have a look at this one.” Nandy nodded at Rachel and smiled.

Rachel smiled back. She liked Nandy, had liked her right away, late that first night in camp. Nandy was close to Rachel's mother's age, though she didn't look like Vivian at all. Her hair was cut short and jagged, and her pale gray eyes were more frankly appraising than Vivian's. There was something about her that reminded Rachel of Vivian though, some maternal, protective quality. That first night, Nandy had been the one who finally told the rest of the camp that Rachel
had
to get some sleep. She had shushed all their urgent questions with a wave of her hand, and dismissed them.

It also didn't hurt that Nandy's name didn't mean anything.

Jab's name referred to his gift. Pathik's name too. But as far as Rachel could tell, Nandy just meant . . .
Nandy
. Which meant that Nandy probably didn't have a gift. No special power. Nothing for Rachel to fear. So it was easier to trust her.

The Others named their children after the gifts they developed, if they developed any. Pathik had explained to Rachel that not all the Others developed gifts, so they kept their common names—the names they were given at birth. Nandy was a common name, and because she had never developed a gift, Nandy kept it as an adult. Even Indigo had never shown any signs of a special talent from what Rachel understood, and he had kept his common name, which was chosen because of the unusual color of his eyes.

Rachel thought most of the Others did develop something, even if it was nothing much. Kinec—the other boy who had been with Pathik and Jab when they made the trek to the Line—was named for his ability to move objects. He could make a fully loaded pack hop along the ground like a clumsy frog.

He had shown Rachel on the last night they spent together on their journey to Pathik's camp, just before they all wrapped up in the thermal blankets Ms. Moore had sent with them. The Others were taught not to show their gifts, but Pathik had said they could make an exception. And so, Kinec had placed his pack on the ground near the small campfire. He had stared at the pack intently, for so long that Rachel thought maybe nothing was going to happen. But then, the pack had lurched forward a few inches. Then it had actually leaped, not high, just half a foot off the ground, but it
left the ground
. It did that three times before Kinec grunted and collapsed.

“That's all I've got right now,” he had said, beads of perspiration glittering on his brow.

Rachel was pretty sure Pathik had let Kinec show her his gift to make her feel better, to let her know that not all gifts were about causing physical pain. But when she remembered that pack, jerking forward like a clumsy bullfrog brought back from the dead, somehow she wasn't comforted.

“Now remember, he's still not strong.” Nandy stopped at the door of the largest building in camp, a one-story brick structure that was still in pretty good repair. Rachel had imagined many former uses for that building in the last few days: a beauty salon, or a flower shop that might have sold orchids like the ones Ms. Moore grew—the ones she had been learning to grow too, before she Crossed. She had settled on a bakery, probably because she had been hungry most of the last two weeks and it was appealing to make mental lists of all the different kinds of desserts the shop might have offered.

There were a couple of other, smaller buildings near the bakery building, remnants of a town that must have stood there years ago. Before the Line was activated. They were constructed of some sort of gray blocks. She had slept in one of them since she had arrived in camp, in a cramped room with another girl around her age, who said as little as possible to her. There was still pavement visible in front of one of the buildings, a sidewalk from a lost time, crumbled and cracked. It reminded Rachel of one of the stranger sights she had seen on their trek from the Line to the camp.

They had been making their way through some dense underbrush, the boys hacking away at vines and bushes in order to clear a path. Jab had grumbled, and Pathik had said, “The road is coming up. It'll get easier for a while.”

“Road?” Rachel saw nothing but brush and trees and wilderness everywhere she looked.

“There it is.” Kinec pointed off to the left.

Rachel turned to look. She saw no road. What she did see was a corridor of strangely tamed landscape. There were some smaller saplings, and some bushes at intervals, but for a long stretch, as far as she could see, the wild forest was reduced to low scrub.

They headed for the easier terrain and once there, Rachel could see why it was so different from the rest of the forest. There were places—where a sapling had pushed up from the earth, or erosion had worn away enough topsoil—where she could see chunks of concrete. On one large chunk there was even a strip of faded, barely perceptible yellow paint.

They were walking on top of what had been, many years before, a highway.

 

 

NANDY RAPPED HER knuckles on the metal door. It was intact, if a bit rusted. On it were the two blue circles Rachel saw everywhere in camp; they were painted on all the doors, and she had seen them on tree trunks at the camp's perimeter. When she'd asked Pathik about them he'd shrugged.

“They mark our camp.” He had said no more.

There was no glass in the windows of the building; that must have shattered long ago. Someone had covered some of the smaller openings with wood. A piece of sheet metal covered the largest window—the one Rachel pictured filled with displays of pastries and cakes.

Nandy rapped again, and the door opened a crack, then wider. A man stood just inside. He had wavy black hair that reached his shoulders and he looked tired. Rachel was beginning to think that she would never see another person who
didn't
look tired.

“This her?” The man inspected Rachel. She stared back at him. She was growing weary of being evaluated by everyone she met in camp.

Nandy shot the man a look that Rachel couldn't decipher. “Let's go,” she said.

Rachel patted her jacket pocket; the letters were there. She had had one each for Pathik, Malgam, and Indigo, from Ms. Moore. She had given them all to Pathik on the trek to camp, but he'd kept only his, saying that she should be the one to give Indigo and Malgam theirs. She hadn't known when the time would be right to give them out, so she had been carrying them around with her. She had already read the letter Ms. Moore had written for her, and the one her mom had written too. They were both brief; there hadn't been much time to waste before she Crossed. Ms. Moore's said to be careful, and to trust only Indigo, his family, and her own instincts. Her mom's said how much she loved Rachel, and told her to be strong. It also mentioned some maps that Vivian had slipped into Rachel's bag. Rachel had reread them both many times already.

Inside the building, the man who had opened the door held a glass jar filled with some sort of oil, with a burning wick wired to the top. The flame cast a smoky yellow circle around the four of them, but the rest of the room was indistinct, cloaked in shadows. Pathik took Rachel's hand in his, to help guide her along. He had done this often on their trek to camp, but not once since they had arrived. Rachel had sort of missed it.

“Malgam's in a mood,” said the man as he led them down a corridor off the main room.

“When has he ever
not
been in a mood?” Pathik sounded irritated.

“I'll take him moody and breathing over sweet and dead, anytime.” Nandy's tone was light, but she shot a reproving look at Pathik.

The man knocked twice on the door at the end of the corridor. They could hear footsteps as someone walked toward the door.

“I'll leave you to it,” said the man. He quickly disappeared back down the corridor.

Rachel was eager to see Indigo again. There were so many things she wanted to tell him: how much Ms. Moore had loved him, how much she thought Ms. Moore regretted not running Away with him all those years ago, how happy she had been when she discovered that he and her son were still alive. She wanted to ask him why he had stayed Away when Ms. Moore didn't meet him as they had planned, why he had never come back to see why she didn't. But most of all, she wanted to ask him about her father, Daniel. Pathik had refused to tell her anything. She had even asked the girl who shared her sleeping quarters, but she had just stared blankly at the digim of Daniel when Rachel showed it to her.

It was dark in the corridor without the wavy-haired man's light, and the way he had rushed off made her a little nervous. She wondered why he wanted to get away so quickly.

The footsteps they had heard approach the door stopped on the other side of it. Rachel could feel that someone was right there, separated from her and Pathik and Nandy by just inches, but there was no sound.

And then the doorknob started to turn.

CHAPTER 2

T
HE DOOR OPENED wide, spilling gold light into the dim corridor. Indigo stood there, smiling. He was a big man, strong despite his years. “I am so glad you could come.” He looked at Rachel.

“Is . . . is Malgam better now, sir?”

“So much better! As you are about to see with your own eyes, child. Come in, come in all of you, Rachel, Pathik, Nan—” Indigo's eyes dropped to Rachel's hand, still clasped in Pathik's, and his eyebrows rose. Pathik was looking past Indigo toward the interior of the room and didn't notice at first. When he did notice, he dropped Rachel's hand as though he'd been burned, and pushed past her into the room. Rachel felt her cheeks flush. She ignored Nandy's smile and followed Pathik into the room.

The room they entered was large. More oil-filled jars lit the interior; the windows were covered with boards here too. There was a retrofitted fireplace in the corner— someone had used stone to build up a hearth, and there was a hole directly above it in the ceiling, a crude outlet for smoke. Rachel wondered how they kept rain from falling into the room. There were four beds. One had a metal bed frame, ancient and dinged, but sturdy enough. The other three were fashioned from wood—
real
wood. Rachel was still surprised—even after three days of sitting in front of a wood fire—at how much real wood there was here. Some was old, from times when wood was still used in those ways, but some was from after the Line was activated. She could tell which were the newer pieces—they were roughly made, fashioned from the trunks of trees with what must be, from the looks of the cuts, crude tools. Only the metal bed was occupied. Malgam lay in it, his upper body propped up by pillows, his lower body covered with blankets. He was wearing a shirt made of the same coarse fabric Rachel had seen so much of in camp. Clothes, packs, bedding, tents, all were made of some version of the brownish, rough-woven cloth. She wondered who made it. Her own clothing, made of the various microfibers that were ubiquitous back home, often got looks here, and more than one of the Others had asked to touch her jacket.