City of Savages (7 page)

“Sarah,” Lauren whispers to Mom. “Look at the lords. What’s going on?”

I follow Lauren’s gaze over the stalks, to the borders of the fields. The lesser lords are in some kind of panic, one by one racing towards the forest. And behind them is the Council of Lords—the six of them all have their fancy predator cloaks on and are fully loaded with red-tagged weapons—swords, knives, and the few guns that Rolladin keeps safe in Belvedere Castle.

“I have no idea,” Mom whispers. “But it doesn’t look good.”

Most of the fieldworkers have already dropped their tools and begun moving through the stalks towards the warlords. We join them, plunk the last of our corn into our collection buckets, and make our way to the front for a better view.

“Get the rest of the lesser lords,” Lory tells Cass and a few of the other junior whorelords. “Stay back!” Lory shouts at all of us. “Whoever leaves the stalks will be shot. No exceptions.”

Lory heads into the forest with the five other members of Rolladin’s Council, as Cass leads a few junior lords on a mad dash to the castle.

Of course, now the cornfields are buzzing.

“What do you think it is?”

“Could it be a holdout?”

There’re so many questions floating around that the cornfields start to feel crowded.

“When was the last time they found a holdout sneaking around the Park?” Sky whispers.

“Years ago,” Mom whispers back.

I look past Lauren and Mom to Sky, and we exchange glances. This feels major. Suddenly me becoming a warlord is the least of our concerns.

I leave Lauren’s side and go to Sky, and she gives me an anxious smile. Whatever tension existed between us from this afternoon is gone. She puts her hand on my shoulder and keeps it there, like she’s anchoring both of us. Trevor runs up beside me on my other side and pushes down the cornstalks for a better view.

There’re gasps and shudders as Cass comes running from the northern fields with the thirty other armed lesser lords in tow. And behind the small army is Rolladin.

This isn’t typical. Rolladin’s never in the fields. It’s beneath her. Seeing her now starts to truly freak me out.

Plus, she’s carrying one of the island’s few assault rifles.

“No one leaves the fields,” she roars towards us. “Or I will have your head as a doorstop.”

She plunges into the forest. We hear yells, muffled orders, a shot ring through the air.

“This is crazy,” Sky whispers to me. “They never use the guns.”

No one moves their feet past the farming border, but necks are craning, fields of eyes are scanning through the dark.

The Council slowly emerges from the forest in a wide ring, weapons extended like a mouthful of fangs. In the middle of the circle stand a crew of strangers with their hands raised. Dirty, ragged, caked in leaves and mud. There’re four of them. All males, which is kind of weird, considering how women-heavy the Park is.

I do a quick scan.

The oldest looks about fifty. There’s one around Mom’s age, then a tall, thin guy who looks maybe twenty-five or something, and then a teenager. The two youngest ones kind of look alike, actually; both have wild black hair that sticks up at all angles.

Funny, these guys don’t look like crazy tunnel feeders, or even raiders, the rough bandits Mom always warns us about. They just look tired. I hear Sky’s breath quicken next to me as the men come into better view.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Rolladin’s got them. We’re safe. It’s over.”

She looks at me fearfully but just shakes her head.

“Fieldworkers!” Rolladin calls to the lot of us cowering in the fields. “These selfish pigs have come to rob the Park, steal your food . . . poach the fruits of your toils. What should I do with them?”

Nobody says a word.

Rolladin storms towards the cornfields and barks, “What do we call these
cowards
? These spineless prisoners who refuse to surrender and earn their way?”

And then there’s a spark among the crops, a small chant that rumbles into a war cry. “Traitors.”

“Traitors.”

“TRAITORS!”

Rolladin smiles wide as we chant, then extends her rifle over us and shakes it, as if to say,
There, there. That’s what I was looking for. Now quiet down
.

She turns back to the holdouts.

“Please!” the oldest of the bunch cries, but Rolladin rails him in his stomach with her gun.

“Quiet. You fools are fucking with the wrong woman. I’ve got no time for freeloaders.” She spits on the ground in front of them. “Or psychos. Whoever you are,
whatever
you are, we follow POW rules to the letter here.” She paces like a hungry tiger. “Lory, lock these holdouts in the zoo.”

“Wait, wait, please! I think there’s been a mistake.” The old guy looks to his buddies for backup. “We don’t know what you mean. We’re not holdouts, or . . . or psychos.”

His voice sounds funny, kind of like he’s singing, his vowels rounded out big and bold.
An accent?
I mouth to Sky. She nods.

“Please,” the oldest continues. “We’ve traveled so far. Let us rest for one night. Let us rest and then we’ll sail away and leave you and your city forever. We swear. We only came to New York because we heard there was hope here.”

Wait,
came
to New York? From where? From Brooklyn? Are these guys Red Allies troops in disguise?

I’m not the only one who’s confused. The crowd buzzes again.

“Came to New York?”

“Is that what he said?”

“Did I hear him right?”

“SILENCE!” Rolladin roars. But I see something in her face I’ve never seen before.

Fear.

8    SKY

It all happens in a whirlwind, a storm of commotion. Rolladin and the Council members with guns take the holdouts, or enemy spies, or whoever they may be, to the zoo to imprison them, while Lory leads an armed team of lesser lords through the fields. They bark at us, push us into the stalks, rip our tools from our hands. We leave the fields in disarray, and then we’re led back to the Carlyle for a full night lockdown.

I don’t remember this ever happening before. My heart’s in my throat the entire time, as if it’s threatening to leave me and find its own way out of this.

Still, through the mayhem, I can think only one thought, over and over. And I can’t believe it. The woodsman.

My figment from the forest.

He’s real
.

Warlords fence us in as we all stumble through the Park and bottleneck at the bridge to 76th Street. I get separated from Phee and Mom as we’re led back to the Carlyle tenements, and then minutes later, from Lauren. I take a deep breath, try not to erupt into panic. Trevor and I hold on to each other as the crowd carries us home.

“No one leaves their rooms, you all hear me?” Lory shouts over the mob. “Rolladin’s orders. Each to their own quarters. Rations will be delivered to your door tonight. Don’t report to the fields tomorrow for duties unless you’re told.”

The crowd is a sea of gasps and mutters, of questions.

“What about the Brits?” Mrs. Warbler bellows above the noise. “What’s to become of them?”

Lory raises her bow and arrow into the air over the crowd, feigns aiming for Mrs. Warbler’s head. The only problem is there’re about ten people—including Trevor and me—in front of her target.

“Shut it, you old bag, or eat wood,” she answers. “You heard Rolladin. They’re traitors. We’re locking them up, she’ll try them, they’ll likely hang in the morning. Now move!”

We enter the dark, dank lobby of the Carlyle. Trevor tries to follow me upstairs, but a warlord grabs him and pulls him down the hall to the singles quarters.

“Wait, Trev—”

“Skyler!” he calls behind him.

“Each to their own rooms!” The warlords push me up the stairs with the rest of the crowd. “We haven’t got all night.”

*   *   *

When I reach our room, Mom and Phee are thankfully already there and safe, and I relax a little. They’re in the process of relighting a few of the firecups with some of our allotted wood.

“Sky, thank God,” Mom whispers. She drops the wood and limps towards me, throws her arms around my neck.

“Mom,” Phee says behind her. “What’s all this about?”

I take Mom’s hands in mine. “Has this ever happened before?”

“A lockdown?” Mom asks us. We all walk to the window, and the three of us peer out of the dusty glass. A couple of warlords are now stationed outside the Carlyle with weapons, flanking the entrance like twin gargoyles. I have no doubt several others are pacing the halls, making sure no one dares to leave their rooms.

“The last time something like this happened, you both were really young,” Mom answers. “A band of tunnel feeders had come to the surface to scavenge. It was during the occupation, when a few Red Allies platoons were still stationed in the Met and the natural history museum.” Mom’s wearing her faraway look again. “We were locked up for days. The Park was swept for holdouts, and five tunnel feeders were found, tried, and killed. The Red generals let Rolladin’s team execute the order. They hung them on crosses along the southern border. Like lampposts,” she whispers. “From Fifth Avenue to Columbus Circle.”

Mom’s eyes have grown teary. Rarely does she share so much, and I want to give her a minute to collect herself.

But Phee, like always, rushes in. “The guys in the woods tonight. Could they be feeders too?”

“You two can’t remember what tunnel feeders are like.” Mom doesn’t look at us, just keeps her eyes focused on the window. “I’ve tried to make sure of that. But you’d know a feeder if you saw one.” She takes one of each of Phee’s and my hands and kisses them. “They’re not right. Inhuman. They’re shells of people who lost themselves in the tunnels, to the dark.”

Mom’s words oddly bring me back to the journal, to when the tunnels were “subways.” I picture her all those years ago, wandering with Mary and me through the darkness. I desperately want to know what separates the woman of then from the woman in front of us. What separates her carefree city from the bones of Manhattan that cage us in now. But I know Mom won’t tell us, even if we ask again, and again.

And the only comfort I take is that we have some of her story on paper, whether she likes it or not.

“Then are these guys raiders from outside the Park?” Phee asks.

“Raiders are lone wolves; they don’t travel in packs like those men. They hide in the rubble of the city, poaching food and supplies here and there. I can’t imagine any raiders survived these last few years of rough winters.” Mom shakes her head. “There’s always been . . . rumors . . . of other holdouts on the island. But by now, the Park and the last of the feeders must be all who’s left.”

Mom runs her fingers through her hair, while our questions just get more and more tangled.

“So where did they come from, Mom?” I coax. “Brooklyn?”

“Yeah, are they Red Allies spying on us?” Phee breathes deeply. “Rolladin wouldn’t have the guts to kill them. Would she?”

“Those men had English accents.” Mom lets go of her hair and thrusts her hands to the windowsill. “I refuse to believe the Brits sided with the Red Allies. The United Kingdom was always our ally.
Is
our ally,” she stresses, then sighs. “Then again, who knows what the hell is going on out there. Rolladin doesn’t share news of the war. Not news of substance, anyway.”

I’m trying to follow, trying to put the pieces together. But they don’t make a full picture.

“Mom, if they’re not holdouts, and they’re not Red soldiers,” Phee asks what I’m thinking, “then who the hell are they?”

“And more importantly,” I add, my stomach now sinking, “how are they here?”

A deep rip of a knock on our door makes the three of us jump, and I let out a small reflexive yelp.

“It’s okay,” Mom says. “It’s just the lords.”

“Three rations. Miller family is served,” a raspy voice booms from the other side of the door. “Get it while it’s lukewarm.”

We bring the small trays of rations into the room, spread some towels out like blankets under the candlelight, and set up our picnic. Phee and I both try to push the conversation forward, find out more, but it’s clear that Mom doesn’t know any more about the Englishmen than we do. We end up eating in silence under the dim lights. Through the thin walls of the Carlyle, we can hear arguments in other rooms, the clanging of metalware, muffled whispers.

“You guys want to play cards?” Mom asks, once we’ve cleared our trays away and stored them in the shadows of the bathroom.

“It’s kind of dark,” Phee says. “Can’t we light some of these other firecups?”

“We should save the wood in case we’re here for another night. I doubt the lords will think to hand out more supplies.”

A few days ago, had someone told me that I’d be forced to stay indoors, playing games, reading, safe and warm, I would have been thrilled. But tonight the hotel feels claustrophobic, overcrowded with all the questions that have elbowed their way into our room.

Why do I need that book to know my mom? Why are we cooped up in here
?
Why are things the way they are
?

And why do I care about that boy in the woods?

Thinking of the boy brings on a flush that spreads across my face like fingers.

“I don’t really want to play cards,” I say.

“Should we read then?” Mom says. “Sky, what are you reading now?
Charlotte’s Web
again, right?” She puts on her best smile, trying to entertain us, make us forget for a moment that we’re prisoners. “Why don’t you read some to us?”

Phee’s eyes open wide, and I look away or else I think I’ll lose it.
We can’t read you
Charlotte
. It’s in the safe in your abandoned apartment. What about your journal instead?

“I’m kind of tired, Mom,” I mumble into my lap. “Maybe we can just go to bed, and start over tomorrow.”

“All right,” she says quietly. “I understand. I guess it’s been another long day.”

*   *   *

Later I lie in bed awake. Moonlight dances across the water-stained ceiling, creates the illusion that we’re sleeping under a slow, lazy tide. It reminds me of the river at home, back on Wall Street, of the way the water stretches so long and wide that you can almost hear the waves beat
Freedom
if you listen closely.

I readjust my pillow and turn to face Phee. She’s wheezing softly, already sound asleep, not a care in the world. Her mouth is turned up in a little smile, as if even her dreams are working out for her. It makes me think of what she said earlier today. About joining the warlords, becoming one of them. Not that she’d said that exactly, but she didn’t have to.

And it haunted me all day.

I watch her sleep. Strong, bold, brazen Phee, protector of the family. A future leader of the Park. A seed of worry takes root in my stomach.

If she becomes a warlord, what happens then? Do I become a year-round fieldworker? Do I just keep following her around like a shadow? Continue to shrink and shrink as she burns brighter, until one day I’m gone completely?

And what’s really bothering me: Am I more upset that Phee would make the crazy decision to become a lord, or that I’ll never have the chance to?

I flop on my back to watch the rippling ceiling. I think of the street-fights, of the rules of the Park, of the way I float through here unnoticed. My mother’s favorite attributes of mine rattle inside my head.
Balance. Patience. Control
.

Am I really patient? Do they really see me as in control?

Or am I just defined by what my younger sister isn’t?

The worry blooms, works its way from my abdomen and curls up my spine, until I can’t sit still anymore. I need air. And space. I need to be outside myself, to burst out the door, to dive into someone else’s world and hide there.

But of course, I won’t do it alone.

I shake Phee’s arm gently and she wakes with a start, but I’m quick to put my hand over her mouth. I poke my chin over her towards our mother. If we don’t want to wake her, this all needs to be in the sister sign language I taught Phee—a mix of basic ASL I learned from a textbook, plus a few of our own trademark gestures.

Phee rubs her eyes and then looks over her shoulder. Mom’s sound asleep, snoring in the darkness. Phee’s eyes light up as she figures out why I’m waking her. She puts her hands out, palms facing up, and then turns her left wrist back and forth, like she’s flipping invisible pages. I nod.
Exactly. The journal.

She points to the bathroom.

I shake my head no, point to Mom and then to my eyes.
Not the bathroom—she’ll wake up if we light the firecups
.

She throws her hands in the air.
What do you want, then?

I can’t believe I’m doing this. I solemnly point towards the door.
I want to sneak out, down the hall.

Her index finger shoots up to her temple and twirls around.
What are you, loony?
Then she swipes her thumb across her neck.
Suicide
.

I just shrug and ignore my shaking hands. I carefully dislodge my legs from the pile of frayed blankets and sheets. I’m not sure if I’m bluffing, until Phee’s hand wraps around my wrist.

She shakes her head slowly.
No
.

And for a moment, the first moment in perhaps our entire lives, I’m ready for something dangerous. And she isn’t. It empowers me, chops at my weed of self-loathing, excites me to the point of recklessness. I take a deep breath, point to her, and then bring my hands to the side of my head in prayer position.
Go back to bed then
.

I give her a small wave, crawl the rest of the way out of the covers, and grab the journal from under our bed.

Phee’s by my side before I can even crack open the door.