Gated (13 page)

Then Marie starts leaning over and putting her fogged-up face extra close to mine, breathing like Darth Vader. From the periphery of my vision, she looks like an alien or a giant bug with curly black hair. It makes us both laugh, especially when we face each other and press our noses together, creating doubles of our giant bug heads as our vision blurs.

Eventually Mr. Whitcomb comes to stand behind us to make sure that we’re doing more working than laughing. I try to ignore Marie’s presence beside me because every time I catch a glimpse of her hair and those glasses, I start up all over again. Mr. Whitcomb taps the back of my head right where my bandage is, and I yelp. I lean over the dresser and try to focus.

We get a break a little while later when Mrs. Brennan brings large jugs of lemonade and Dixie cups from the kitchen. Marie and I grab two cups apiece and carry them back over to our station to drink them. I put the cool cup
to my head for a minute first before I drink. Marie gulps both of hers and then gets up again to get some more.

Will is on the other side of the room, helping to cut wood into the exact sizes needed for the sides and tops of various dressers and tables. Like most of the men, he has his shirt off. He’s shiny with sweat, gilded with grime. He’s so focused on the spinning saw in front of him and the wood between his hands that he never notices me staring. His hair looks almost gray with its thick layer of sawdust. I can’t help wondering if that’s what he’ll look like when he’s truly old. If it is, he’ll definitely still be nice to look at. I’d have to be a fool or blind not to know how cute he is, but it’s strange how I can know this and still not feel anything. It’s kind of like looking at a painting. Sometimes I see one in a book that’s beautiful and the artist’s use of light, color, and texture impresses me, but the painting never makes me forget about the technical reasons why it’s beautiful or makes me feel something deep inside that I can’t put into words. To me, Will is like that, technically perfect but somehow uninspiring. My stomach has never jumped around with him the way it did when I was with Cody. Not in all the time we’ve been around each other.

Cody.

I keep trying to get that boy out { th#x20 of my mind, but he keeps creeping back in. And every time he does, I can’t help smiling. I don’t even know him, but still I feel kind of happy just thinking about him and how his smile
was slightly lopsided or how his chin was just a little bit scruffy. It was shocking how much I wanted to reach out and touch it that day. But I have to stop this. Will is right there. What would he do if he knew what I was thinking?

Marie nudges me on her way back to her seat and I can see her eyebrows arch upward, can practically picture the smile beneath her face mask as she looks at me and then Will. I’m still staring in his direction. I didn’t even realize. I nod my head and try to mirror her expression so that she’ll continue to think that I’m lusting after Will the way she does over Brian. I’ve never told anyone—including Marie—that I’m not in love with Will. She’s my closest friend besides him, so maybe I
should
tell her. I mean, I’ve thought of a dozen different ways to bring up the subject, but I just can’t seem to. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m afraid she won’t understand or maybe that she’ll feel sorry for me. But I think mostly I’m certain she’ll think something’s wrong with me. I can’t face seeing this in her eyes and knowing that what I’ve suspected is true, that I’m somehow defective and incapable of recognizing love—of feeling anything like it. Ever.

We work right through lunch. My mom and some of the other members who haven’t been assigned to the workshop bring us sandwiches and drinks eventually, but I can’t really eat. Every time I try to, I feel like I’m eating wood chips instead of egg salad. There must not be any part of me, including my mouth, that isn’t coated in sawdust. I drink about a gallon of water instead. The heat
is becoming a physical pressure, multiple pairs of flaming-hot hands compressing my head until I feel like I’m throbbing all over, every bit of my skin fevered and swollen.

After we eat, we rotate jobs so no one gets too cramped up from the same repetitive motions, and soon I’m in the back of the shop where the biggest fans are, painting furniture with chestnut-colored stain. The air is nowhere near as stuffy, but the smell of the stain starts to stuff up my nose and increases the pressure inside my head until I feel like it might explode. I feel faint and sick to my stomach, but no one else has stopped working. The few times I’ve tried to sit back and relax, Mr. Whitcomb or Mr. Brown has come to stand next to me, eyeballing me until I hunch back over my tabletop and paint. I try to imagine that I’m painting a landscape or the horses out in the pasture, but since my brushstrokes have to be up and down and even, it’s impossible.

We don’t stop for dinner until it is almost eight o’clock. I’m so tired that I can barely stand up. My hands and wrists ache from all the sanding and painting. My lungs are clogged with dust and raw from stain fumes. I wriggle my arms and stretch. Will and most of the other men are still working. It’s like they’ve made a contest out of the day. They keep checking out what the person next to them is doing. Whoever is still working and not complaining about it must be the manliest. Their circular saws haven’t stopped screaming all day, and even after I go outside and head toward the horse corral, I can still hear
them. It makes me want to rip up pieces of my shirt and stick them in my ears so I can have at least a little peace and quiet.

“There you are. C’mon,” Marie says as she tugs at my arm. Her eyes are rimmed with two identical circles of white where the safety glasses have blocke {s hon,d all of the sawdust. She looks like a bedraggled raccoon in reverse and I have to laugh.

“I know, bad, right? I refuse to even look in the mirror right now,” she sighs.

“Where are we going?” All I want to do is go home, stand under a blast of cold water in the shower, and then pass out.

“Pool.” She grabs my arm.

“But we’re filthy and I don’t have my suit,” I half complain, half laugh. Marie ignores my protests and pulls me down the path to the pool. It’s noticeably cooler the closer we get to the water. Pretty soon we’re hopping from foot to foot so we can peel off our socks and shoes, and then we hold hands and run across the still-warm cement and jump into the water.

We let go of each other right before we go under, and then I curl into a ball and sink to the bottom, a burning coal in a bucket of ice water. I imagine my skin sizzling as I sit on the cement. The pool lights are on and I open my eyes and stare up at the surface.

Marie is floating on her back above me, arms and legs wide, her hair fanned out in all directions. I stay curled up
for as long as I can, relishing the quiet and the way time seems to be suspended down here. I look past Marie to the sky. It is quickly fading to black except for right at the edge of my sight line where the last stripes of the pink and orange sunset are lingering. It’s like a beautiful mirage, shimmering as the water moves, precariously close to disappearing.

I don’t come up until I start to see spots and my lungs threaten to burst. Then I shoot up to the surface of the water, gasping and dizzy. Marie bobs upright and gives me a look that says she thinks I’m crazy before she turns her face back up to the first few evening stars.

“Do you think if you wish the same wish every time you see the first star each night that it has a chance of coming true?” I ask as I tread water around her.

“I don’t know.” Her voice is soft and faraway, almost like she’s not really listening to me at all.

I press my lips together tightly. “Because I’ve been wishing the same wish for forever … so you think maybe I have a chance?”

“Which is what?” she asks.

I watch my hands cut through the water. “That we never have to go into the Silo at all.”

She sucks in a breath.

“He could be wrong, you know. The world could be just fine. I mean he could be … confused or something, couldn’t he?” The words spill out of me in a rush.

She looks at me carefully, her eyes glued to mine—not
exactly the response I was hoping for. I know I shouldn’t question Pioneer’s visions, his science. Long ago he showed us the proof of the end and it makes sense. All of his visions have come true. The newscasts today are just further proof. And he’s done nothing but good by withdrawing us from a world where people abuse the earth, hurt each other, and try to take what isn’t their own. For me to suggest that he’s somehow not who we think he is is unthinkable. But then, almost as if it has a mind of its own, my hand goes absently to my neck, reminding me that not everything he does feels right.

“I said that wrong. I just mean that I
wish
he was wrong, you know? But of course he isn’t, I mean the earthquakes and the hurricane. Obviously he’s right. {;s was01D; I’m babbling and nervous. Does she think I’m crazy or bad—or worse, will she decide to tattle to Pioneer?

I open my mouth to say something, anything, to distract her from all that I’ve said—to reassure her that I’m not thinking of rebelling or something, but I don’t know exactly what to say. I try to smile at her instead, but I can’t quite get my mouth to turn up. It’s like I’ve become so chilled that my mouth’s frozen.

Marie turns her face away from me and starts wiggling her fingers in the water just enough to put a little distance between us. “You have to be careful, Lyla. I wouldn’t say any of this to anyone else, okay? Having some fun, getting into a teensy bit of trouble, that’s one thing, but what you just said … is something else entirely.”

“You’re right, of course you’re right. I’m just heat-stroked, pay no attention to me,” I say quickly. I arch my back and slide onto the surface and Marie does the same. I stretch out my hand until I can reach hers. I hold on to it and give it a squeeze. Together, we look up at the sky. I keep her hand in mine as we float across the water. But still, I can’t stop myself from silently wishing on the stars and hoping against all odds that somehow it will make a difference.

Indy wasn’t at Mandrodage Meadows when we moved there. As soon as the barn, corrals, and stables were built, we had cows and pigs, chickens and turkeys. The horses didn’t arrive until much later.

It was the day after Christmas the year I turned eight. I can still remember the animal trailers coming up the road and how our usual distrust of Outsider vehicles was absent for once. All of us kids were waiting at the front gate. It seemed barely capable of holding us we were so excited. We were downright bouncy.

You can’t exactly ride a pig or a cow, at least you’re not supposed to. But a horse … a horse can take you just about anywhere you want to go. They’re special. Different.

I’d drawn horses for years by then, always secretly hoping that somehow the adults would decide to let us have them. I had dozens of sketches of Arabians, mustangs, and palominos papering my bedroom walls. In my dreams I was always riding, hair whipping in the wind, arms flung open wide.

The others were excited too, but I knew that Pioneer had agreed to purchase the horses because of me. He’d whispered it in my ear Christmas morning just after I opened a book on how to sketch them. I knew about them before he made the announcement to the rest of the Community. It was the best present I’d ever received, probably will ever receive.

Once they were unloaded and led to the barn, the other kids scattered to play in the snow, but I lingered by the horse stalls. Indy caught my attention right away. He was the smallest and his bottom lip constantly hung open just a little. He seemed aware of it and would suck it in toward his teeth, but inevitably it would flop back out again like some middle-aged guy’s oversized belly, all loose and lazy. It was comical, as if he was constantly gaping at something. I ~;s wddle couldn’t look at him and not smile.

I spent all of my free time for weeks beside Indy’s stall. I’d feed him carrots or apples. The other kids were over their initial excitement by then, especially once they’d spent a day or two mucking out the stalls, but I would have brought my pillow down and slept alongside Indy if I could have. He felt like family from the start.

“Happy, Little Owl?” Pioneer asked after the first week.

“Yes, thank you.” I smiled at him.

“You know I love you, right?”

I nodded.

“No one will ever take care of you better than me, will they?”

Pioneer watched as I painted Indy—literally painted him. I had spread out my paint pots along the side of the stall and made blue flowers on Indy’s flanks. I was just beginning a garland of ivy around his neck. Indy was happily munching on the sugar cubes I’d brought him, choosing to tolerate my decorations in return. He held his head high and peered over the stall at the other horses as if to let them know that he was special.

Pioneer came inside the stall and picked up some purple paint. He ran a line of it down Indy’s nose. “I love you like you were my own daughter, Little Owl. I love you like you love this horse, you know that? All of you are my family. My children. There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for you, no lengths I wouldn’t go to to keep us together. When something speaks to your heart like this here horse does to yours, I take great pleasure in giving it to
you. And all I ask in return is that you put your trust in me. Can you do that?”