The One Safe Place (17 page)

The farm was different from the outside, hidden and protected. It was as if it had been forgotten by time itself and simply left to its own blessed devices. Perhaps there were other spots like it, but Devin did not know of them. And whatever happened at this place, however confused his mind and terrible the dreams, he would hold on to the memory of the farm. A pocket of richness, the one safe place in all the world.

Mrs. Babbage was at the door of the tower.

“You’re to report to the East Building,” she said.

She meant the Place, of course. He followed her down the path, around the field with the small hill, and up toward the recreation hall and the turning with the strange, twisted trees. She didn’t say anything to him as they walked. He thought perhaps that dim as she was, she understood he was afraid and felt a little sorry for him.

The entrance to the Place was open, and they went inside.

It was just as Luke had described it. The walls were white and shining and there was a room with nothing but screens and monitors and glass panels and a staff member in a white coat who led him to a chair without saying anything. The Administrator was there. He saw her at the back of the room behind one of the glass panels, looking intently at something, her hand held up as if to say “wait.” Then she murmured something into a black button in front of her mouth and her hand came down.

Devin didn’t see the needle going into his arm. He barely even felt it.

He was awake, he felt almost sure of it; but he didn’t know where he was. The pieces wouldn’t fall into place. There was a ceiling above and light coming in and the vague shapes of furniture around him, but none of it fit together.

He didn’t know where he was, but he felt that he should know.

Even worse, he didn’t know who he was—his name, his age, his past, or his future. These were basic things—the most basic things of all—but they simply wouldn’t come to him. Yet they felt very close, like words stuck on the tip of his tongue or a familiar tune whose notes refused to play. He was someone; everyone was someone unless they were dead. Was he dead? Was this what death was like? Not knowing who or how or even what you were?

A crack had opened in the universe, and he was falling through empty space without a single memory to clutch onto.

I am someone! I am someone! Help me!

Panic engulfed him, and for several moments he lay paralyzed while his mind whirled, battered by fear and confusion like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage. In a little while he became aware of a sound, a low, rasping noise like air squeezed through ancient, leaking bellows.

It was his own breath.

It sounded that way because his body hurt so much. He was not dead, then, he thought. Surely the dead didn’t feel such pain. He was lying in a bed under a single white sheet, but it felt as though there was an iron board pressing down over the whole length of him. His throat was dry, his muscles ached, and all the joints in his body felt locked, as if they’d been tightened by invisible screws.

He turned his head and saw that the room he was in was high up; he could see fields through the window and something that glittered as it turned, catching the sun. He could tell by the light that it was midmorning. On the other side of the room were two doors. One was half open, and he could just see the edge of a bathroom seat and the side of a small sink. Apart from a table by the bed and a single chair, very large and comfortable looking, the room was empty.

There was the sound of keys and the door to the room suddenly opened. A woman came in. He felt sure he knew her, but equally sure he had never seen her before in his life. She had a pinched-looking face and was carrying a tray with a glass of clear liquid. He managed to raise his head slightly. As he did so, the pillows rose up behind him with a small hissing sound so that in a few seconds he was half-propped up with his neck and shoulders supported.

“Where am I?” he said with difficulty. His voice sounded odd in his ears, although he didn’t know why.

“Right where you’re meant to be,” the woman said irritably. She came over and put the glass of liquid on the bedside table and went out of the room again without looking at him.

He stared at the glass. He was very thirsty. He lifted his hand and reached for it. There appeared to be a large gold ring on his middle finger. He stared at it stupidly for a second or two, then grasped the glass and drank it down.

Almost immediately, most of his pain seemed to ebb away. He sighed, his breath rattling in his throat. His fear retreated too. It was still there, but only slightly, a shadow at the edge of things. His thoughts became muffled; the walls of the room lost their sharpness and grew vague and spongy. He dozed.

The light changed and changed again. He dreamed.

He dreamed he was on an empty plain. No trees grew there or plants of any kind. The sky was low and hard, curved like the inside of a tin mug turned upside down to catch a beetle. A boy was sitting on the ground a little way ahead with his back to him and the hood of his jacket up. He couldn’t see the boy’s face, but a terrible misery radiated from him, a stink of desperate sorrow and regret beyond all power to comfort. He didn’t want to keep walking, but he couldn’t help it. He was close to the boy now, close enough to hear him crying.

He left me, he left me . . .

There were tears running down his own cheeks; grief clutched his heart.

It’s too late, too late, too late . . .

The boy’s small shoulder in its blue jacket was just below him. He reached out his hand.

He woke up and he was back again in the dream of the room with the single chair. Someone had come in and left a tray of food for him.

The food looked strange. A single fried egg lay on a white plate. A tiny tomato that had been scooped out to form a bowl lay to the right of the egg. To the left, three slices of mushroom had been placed in a fan arrangement, each slice overlapping its neighbor with perfect regularity. He stared at it dully. It didn’t seem like a meal that had been cooked in the ordinary way, he thought. It was more like something that had been put together with tweezers by a person holding their breath.

He ate in a daze, without tasting.

The light changed. It grew dark outside.

He thought he was awake and standing by the window but he must have been asleep, because there was a man outside looking in at him and he knew that was impossible. The room was high up. The man would have to be fifty feet tall. He was an old man with cheekbones as sharp as knives, and he stared at him through the glass.

“I’m dreaming,” he cried to himself in terror. “I’m dreaming!”

The lights went off and the man went away.

Time stood still and then suddenly passed. “Where am I?” he asked the woman with the pinched face. “Please . . . tell me my name.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said, handing him another glass of liquid. “Drink it up now like a good boy . . .” She was smiling, her whole face lit up with satisfaction.

“That’s it,” she said. “Drink it all up and have a nice little sleep.”

He didn’t want to sleep. The boy would be there, waiting for him. He didn’t want to see the boy or touch him. But wanting had nothing to do with it. He slept and dreamed of the empty plain again. There was a trail of small footprints in the dust. They ran across the ground with skips and hops and he followed their path, his own feet dragging, his heart flooded with anguish.

The footprints ended and the boy was there. His head was down, hidden by the hood of his jacket, and his shoulders twitched as he sobbed.

He left me. He hasn’t come back.

“Who left you?” he said, and touched the boy’s shoulder.

The boy turned his head and looked at him and he staggered back in horror.

He had the wrong face. Not the innocent face of a child, but that of an old man, the old man who had been looking in through the window. The same sagging, pitted skin, the same pale, watery eyes. And he was staring at him with a look as cold and distant as the stars.

He tried to scream, but for a long moment, no sound came. Then, like bats bursting from a cave, his shrieks came thick and fast and seemed to have no end.

Fifteen

DEVIN WOKE IN HIS
bed at the Home, under the quilt of patchwork stars. For a second or two he could barely believe it, and then he was overcome by relief. He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged himself as hard as he could. He was back, he was safe. He was himself again.

But the feeling of the dream wouldn’t quite go away, and after the relief passed, a strange unease came over him. He felt mysteriously changed. It was as if someone had crept into his home while he was away and used everything and moved everything around and then, just before he got back, returned them to almost the right places. Almost, but not quite. Devin couldn’t identify what it was, but he knew something was different.

Tears rose in his eyes and ran down his face. They tasted of dark-blue dust. Did everyone taste tears that way? It didn’t seem to matter anymore. Nothing he felt or did seemed to matter. Before going to the Place, he’d told himself he would hold on to the memory of his farm, whatever happened. But he hadn’t been able to. A great feeling of helplessness washed over him, and for a little while he lay in his bed without moving, simply crying.

He heard a scuffling at the door and wiped his eyes quickly. Luke was outside, with Malloy and Kit.

“Welcome back,” Luke said. “We missed you.”

“Fulsome was all sad!”

“Frisker too,” Kit said gently, and held out the puppy for him to pet.

Devin looked from one to the other, so glad to see them he thought he might cry again.

“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks. I missed you too.”

They sat down and told him what had been happening while he’d been in the Dream. There wasn’t much to report except that Megs had succeeded in setting fire to her doll’s hair, using one of the courtyard torches, and after that, all the torches had been removed. The main news was that since her father’s visit, the Administrator had introduced a number of annoying new rules. For a start, there was now a dress code.