Dark Eden (14 page)

“Oh, my God,
Will
, it is you.”

In the time that I’d taken my eyes off the screen and decided to escape with Marisa, she’d gone to bed and been replaced by Avery.

“Hi,” I said, and felt as if there was a potato stuck in my throat.

“Sit down, it’s okay,” she said, wiping away mascara that had run down her cheeks. She was a pretty girl—not Kate Hollander, but pretty just the same. She had a desolate beauty up close, like an empty field of rolling hills.

“I thought you were someone else,” I said, turning off the music and taking out the earbuds. Thank God I hadn’t put up my hoodie or she might have thought I was an executioner come to take her away.

“Who?” she asked. “Who did you think I was?”

“I thought you were Marisa,” I said. I was starting to shake, wondering what it would be like if everyone else came out of their rooms and found me here. They’d slash me apart with their words. Connor Bloom might even hit me. It could happen.

And then there was Avery herself.

I’m not sure she can be trusted.

Don’t be ridiculous. Of course she can. She’ll play her part; I’ll see to it.

Were Dr. Stevens and Rainsford talking about Avery, or someone else?

“You don’t need to worry,” Avery said, “I’m not going to tell. Davis said you might turn up. It’s why I waited.”

This was a curious comment, and curiosity has a way of putting my sizzling brain to rest. It’s like two giant question marks can’t fit inside my head at the same time. I was considering what might happen if a group of my peers gathered around me, but I was also hopelessly interested in what Avery meant.

Curiosity won and I sat down.

“Where have you been?” asked Avery.

“In the basement of the bunker,” I replied. “What happened between Davis and Rainsford?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Avery said, turning away as if the words were so frustrating they were making her want to scream. “He wouldn’t tell me, and then he was just gone.”

“Gone?” I asked.

She nodded fast a couple of times, wiped away another falling tear.

“Did you ask Rainsford what happened?”

“No, but I asked Dr. Stevens. She said the same thing:
Talk to Rainsford
. Do you think I ought to?”

“Sure you should. Why not?”

“Okay.”

It was a hollow reply, as if she didn’t know any better what to say or she was just too emotionally spent to care.

I glanced over my shoulder at all the doors in the room, wondering when Marisa would come back out. But that wasn’t going to happen until everyone was asleep, and Avery Varone was still out here.

“Do you think the cures work?” I asked.

“Yeah, they work,” she said.

“Then why won’t you do it?”

She rolled her eyes and laughed in a way that was filled with regret.

“I say it, but no one listens.”

“You can’t be cured,” I offered.

She nodded, then leaned her head back on the soft leather couch, staring at the shadows on the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “If it’s any consolation, we almost share something in common.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her neck still tilted back but her head turning to me now.

“You can’t be cured, and I
won’t
be cured. I think this entire thing is insane.”

“Could be,” she said thoughtfully. “It doesn’t really matter either way.”

“Listen, Avery, I think I’m going to leave now. Please don’t tell anyone I was here or where I’ve been.”

“I won’t,” she said. “And, Will?”

“Yeah?”

“She likes you. She told me so.”

Avery Varone was incurably romantic. She was falling for Davis and paying attention to others falling around her. My heart fluttered—
she likes me?
I had a moment of feeling it was too good to be true. It was a moment that was not to last.

“Speaking of Marisa,” I said. “Usually she’s the last one up. Where is she?”

“I thought you knew,” said Avery. And then Avery said three words I will never forget as long as I live.

“She’s being cured.”

I didn’t believe Avery Varone when she said she wouldn’t tell. How could she keep a secret like that? I could already hear the conversation with Rainsford.

I know where Will Besting is.

Do you, now.

I do. I’ll tell you if you give me Davis’s number.

A fair arrangement. Have you a pen?

Sadly, as far as I was concerned, Avery was already under Fort Eden’s spell, so more likely it would go something like this:

I know where Will Besting is.

Tell me. Now.

Basement, Mrs. Goring’s bunker.

Go away.

Yes, sir.

I thought these things as I ran down the extended tunnel between the fort and the Bunker. I thought them as I entered the bomb shelter and set the huge monkey phones on my ears, felt the soft sting of the cracked plastic on my skin.

I wasn’t someone who prayed very often, mostly because I didn’t understand what I was doing. But I prayed that night in the Bunker, or did something like praying as I waited for Marisa’s monitor to turn on.

I know I said I wouldn’t listen. I said I wouldn’t watch, but I’m not doing this because I want to. I’m doing it so you don’t have to go through it alone. I’m right here. Please, God, if you have any heart at all, let her know she’s not alone. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.

I was whispering the words, hearing them muffled in my head, wishing the monitor would never turn on. Maybe Avery was wrong, or maybe she’d lied in order to get me back down here so I’d be trapped.

I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

I’d listened to Marisa’s audio sessions with Dr. Stevens so many times that they were like memorized songs I could return to whenever I wanted; and waiting, the words drifted into my mind.

Do you ever go back?

You mean home?

Yes, home. Do you ever go to Mexico?

No, never.

Can you think of why this might be so?

Because people will judge me. They’ll think of me as something I’m not.

You speak perfect English, Marisa. No one’s going to judge you for visiting home.

Hablo espanol mejor que Ingles.

You speak Spanish and English.

I speak Spanish better than I do English. I just don’t want to.

But why, Marisa? It’s a beautiful language. And Mexico—it’s your heritage.

Do we have to talk about this?

There’s a connection here, Marisa. Why have you abandoned your history?

I don’t know.

Does it have anything to do with what happened to your father? Marisa? What happened to him wasn’t your fault.

Dejame en paz.

No, I won’t leave you alone.

You must.

But I won’t. What are you afraid of, Marisa?

I knew what Marisa feared. She was convinced that someone was in her house, trying to take her away. He would take her in the dark while everyone else slept. It kept her awake at night as she stared at the doors in her room: the bathroom door, the closet door, the door from the small family room. Often she would sit on her bed at night and cry, but she was too afraid to speak or call out. She was sure someone was in her room, and always there was the burlap bag.

You’re practically a grown-up, Marisa. I don’t think they make burlap bags that large.

I think they do.

When you’re really afraid—when you’re flooding with fear—the man is holding the bag?

Yes, he’s at one of the doors, holding the bag. He says he’s going to put me in it.

Are you sure about that part?

It’s a big bag, big enough for three of me at least. He says he’s going to put me inside.

Are you sure?

Why do you keep asking me that?

Because I want to know about the bag.

I told you about the bag.

Who’s in the bag, Marisa?

Estoy en la bolsa
. I am in the bag.

Are you absolutely sure?

I waited, thinking about Kino and
The Pearl
. Why was he so dead set on rising up? Couldn’t he see all it would cost him? And why was Marisa so focused on being as not-Mexican as possible? Every person I’d ever met from that part of the world was friendly and relaxed, full of life, interesting. What was the big deal?

I waited, the humming in my ears starting to bother me.

This is a setup,
I thought.
Any second now,
Mrs. Goring will be at the door. She’s going to murder me with a can of corn. She’ll beat me to death with it. She’s a very angry woman. She could do it.

And then, just like that, the waiting was over.

Marisa’s monitor was below and to the left of the one in the middle of the group. It fluttered to life magically, softer than the others had: a white room with a glowing edge like an angel’s halo.

Maybe God heard me
, I thought, adjusting the headphones so they sat right over my ears.

There was something very odd about this room, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then I realized: there was no helmet with its ghastly wires and tubes, just a white room and a white door that opened.

Marisa put her head through the doorway, and for a moment I thought she might turn back. It also crossed my mind that a true friend would have gone down there and gotten her. I felt small and worthless, as if I’d let her down when she needed me most. She stepped through the doorway; and when she closed it, the nightmare began.

The room went from all white to completely black at the click of the latch, all but the thing that lay on the floor with the wires and the tubes. The helmet was there, stark white against the blackness all around it, glowing as if it was filled with neon light. The light fell on Marisa’s face and gave her a pale, hollowed-out quality as she picked up the awful device and held it over her head.

You are adored,
I said, closing my eyes.

It was the only prayer I could think of.

Marisa Sorrento, 15

Acute fear: being kidnapped

The monitor in the bomb shelter lit up with what was being shown inside the helmet. Marisa was someplace I had never seen before. It was very dark, the faintest light coming from down long rows of boxes. A man, brown skinned and smiling, with a thick black mustache, held a little girl’s hand, pulling her along. When he spoke, it was in broken English, thick with a Spanish accent.

Marisa, come, I show you.
Mas grande de setas.

Speak English, Papa. You know how angry they get.

Si, Ingles.
Come, Marisa. Follow me. We go to the big mushrooms.

Back in the room, Marisa had knelt on the floor, which bothered me. Was she praying? I think she was. The white line along the right side of the screen began to rise, and the image switched back to inside the helmet.

The long, wooden boxes were filled with mushrooms. She was underground, in some sort of plant where they were growing thousands upon thousands of mushrooms. What could it possibly mean?

You there! Come here—this guy needs a hand moving boxes.

A voice from down the long row, calling Marisa’s father away. He turned to her, told her to stay right where she was. He would be right back.

There seemed to be a moment in which the little girl started to search and became lost, calling for her papa. When the screen softly filtered back to the room, Marisa hadn’t moved. But the white line had. It was nearing halfway.

Well, hello there, Marisa Sorrento. What brings you down here in the dark?

Back inside the helmet now, Marisa turning fast to the voice. A different man, a bad man, holding a flashlight under his face in the way that men do to scare kids at a campout. He wore a cowboy hat, and his pale face shimmered with sweat.

Stay put now, don’t go running off on me.

“Run, Marisa! Run!” I yelled in the bomb shelter.

You’re daddy needs to shut his mouth, understand?

The helmet nodded up and down.

A strike won’t do. Can’t have it. Tell me you understand.

I do.
A small voice of a five- or six-year-old, afraid.

You see this here bag, Marisa Sorrento?

The giant burlap bag, flopping over the side of the bad man’s leg, and the helmet nodding once more.

You get your daddy to shut up, and I won’t put him inside. He shuts up, they all shut up. It’s all on you. Understand what I’m saying?

The monitor moved to the darkened room, where the white line moved faster, past halfway, into the realm of gushing fear.

When the screen returned to inside the helmet, Marisa was in a bedroom,
her
bedroom, I imagined, and the hour was late. The image had taken on a bluish night security camera glow and in the glow, an empty doorway. The image fluttered, and the empty doorway was filled with a man who wore a cowboy hat. Next to him, a giant burlap bag, filled and heavy.

I got your daddy in this here bag. You wanna take a look?

Go away!

Come on, take a look in here.

Leave me alone!

You should have listened to me, Marisa Sorrento. It’s your fault he’s in here.

The man moved toward the bed, opening the bag, and Marisa stared into the gaping black hole.

The monitor switched to the room at the bottom of Fort Eden, which had turned entirely white again. I couldn’t even see the line, wiped out by all things white; but I knew it had happened. Marisa was flooded with fear, and the wires were jumping to life.

All the while, she never moved. She had knelt and prayed from the start.