Unfallen (2 page)

“I cooperate.” I sounded flat and unhelpful, even to myself. “And I get sent to be a Myrmidon, and Mom’s safe? She doesn’t have to brotherwife with Uncle Irv or anyone else?”

“Allowances can be made.” Harker glanced out the bay window. Then all his attention was back on me. “What do you know about Robert Maguire? We hear you’re the only person at Temple he sought out or seemed to speak at any length to.”

Make it a good lie, Julie.
But in order to tell a good lie, you have to start with the truth. “We just talked. Both of us hated Camp. He got a Pride patch for telling a lay pastor he could teach a better theology class. He thought all the adults were stupid.”

They exchanged glances. I drew a deep breath, and took the plunge with something they’d believe.

“He kind of was asking me to run away. Said we’d go south over the border. Just him and me.”

And we were off and running, both of them throwing questions at me. It was like a Confession Session, sitting in the middle of the circle and thinking up sins to make it worthwhile as the pastors and youth leaders shouted at you and the other kids made Holy Spirit noises.

I think I did pretty okay, because after a while they left, and I made it upstairs to my bathroom before I had to throw up.

The communicator sat on my nightstand, a little silvery circle blinking its tiny red LED. Just like a baby cherub. It probably
was
spying on me. If Rob showed up I was supposed to press the button and the Myrmidons would come.

They were so smart, they didn’t even know he had no idea where I lived.

I lay in bed and tried not to think. I couldn’t hurt Rob if he was gone, and if I could get into Myrmidon training…why not? I could pretend to be orthodox. I could ride around in an electro SUV and terrify people, I could mouth Pastor Peter’s newest all the time. It wasn’t that hard.

And Mom would be safe. She’d been restless again when I finished throwing up, and I’d brushed her hair to calm her down. Maybe she could even come off the meds a bit, now that Father—

A rattle at my window. I blinked, pushing down the white eyelet cover, and propped myself on my elbows. The communicator kept flashing, steadily.

A shadow at my window, tapping, and I probably already knew who it was. Because I got out of bed, pulling my tank top down, and padded over. I unlocked the window and slid it up, cool night air raising goose bumps all over me, and the plane tree outside rustled as he moved a little.

“Julie.” He was perched up in the
tree
, for God’s sake. His hair was all messed up, and his T-shirt had definitely seen better days, but he was bright-eyed and grinning. It did a lot for his thin face. “Hey.”

“What are you
doing
?” I whispered. “The Myrmidons are after you, for cripesake! And how did you find out where I—”

“You’ve got an incognito cherub in your bedroom, too. It’s okay.” The grin widened. He was as far away from the gaunt, sullen kid at Temple as it was possible to get. Still thin, but that smile threatened to crack him wide open. “And five minutes at a public vidshell would find you. Kingstree’s not like Smith for a name, you know. Get your shoes.” His whisper was a lot louder than mine, or maybe it just seemed that way. Mom was tranked to the gills and Mattie was probably in bed by now, but still.

“My shoes? I’m in my
pajamas
.” But I reached out through the window, and he grabbed my hand. His skin was warm, and he squeezed. “Rob. What are you
doing
?”

“It’s all coming apart.” He braced himself on the branch. “Come with me.”

What?
“Where?”

“Out. Away. There’s safe places. It’s going to happen soon.”

“
What’s
going to happen?”

A shrug. The smile was fading a little. “
It
, Julie. You really need me to spell it out for you?”

“I guess not.” But I kind of thought he should. “I can’t go yet. The funeral’s in a couple days, and my mom…” And all of a sudden I thought that maybe I should thank him or something. After all, my father was dead. But that was stupid, right? He couldn’t have had anything to do with that.

“Don’t worry about your mom.” He leaned back a little, the branch creaked. “She’ll be okay. She’s an adult.”

She’s drugged out of her mind and Uncle Irv is sniffing around.
“Rob…” I was kind of glad it was dark, because if he started looking disappointed, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t go get some shoes.

“Hey, it’s okay. Look.” He cocked his head a little, like he heard music. “All right. Funeral’s in two days, right? Meet me three days from now, that’s Sunday. Afternoon, anytime after two, in Coughlin Park. You know where that is? You can get there on the bus.”

I knew where it was—you could see the whole city from there, and on sunny days there were picnics. “But what about the—”

“Don’t worry about the Myrmidons. They’re not a problem.”

“Are you insane?” I forgot to whisper. “They
are
a problem, Rob, you just can’t—”

“I can.” He leaned forward, almost inside my window. “You remember what I told you? I’ve got proof, Julie. It’s my time now. They’re not going to do a damn thing to me, or to you.”

“That’s really nice, but why?”

“I like you.” Awkward for the first time. “I liked you from the second I saw you in Confession Session at Sacred Abiding, remember? You told that counselor Sheridan to go to hell. You’re smart and you don’t believe their bullshit. The world’s rotten, their God’s rotten, and we’re gonna make them
pay
.” He squeezed my hand so hard the bones creaked. “I just…I thought you liked me too. At least, a little bit.”

Well, maybe I did. “You’re crazy.” I was back to whispering. “If they catch you they’ll derez you. Or Rechristen you, even.”

“I’m not worried. Do you…” He was staring at me like he wanted to get inside my skull and read my brain. “Do you like me? Even a little bit?”

What else could I say? “Yeah.” I squeezed back, hoping he wouldn’t be grossed out by my sweating fingers. “I like you, Rob.”
Sure I do. And if you’re what you say you are and you got rid of Father, I like you even more.
“What are you gonna do until Sunday?”

“Bum around. Eat.”

After Holy Camp, it’s the one thing most kids want to do. Eat something, anything, to fill up the hole. “All right. Sunday, Coughlin Park. Where—”

“I’ll find you.”

The tree creaked, sharply. I flinched. “You’ve got to go, they might catch you.”

“They’re not
gonna
, Julie. Relax.” But he was grinning again. And he did something strange. He lifted my hand up and pressed his lips against my knuckles. My whole body froze, then went hot. “I really like you,” he whispered. “See you Sunday.”

Then he let go of my hand, and I watched him climb down the tree with lanky, economical grace. I kept watching, but he vanished into the darkness along the fence. After about ten minutes I closed the window and retreated to my bed. The white walls glowed, and my familiar bedroom was a trap with the communicator’s red eye blinking, blinking.

That made two times in one day someone had called me smart. A nice compliment, but my brain was chewing on itself in the worst way. Something had occurred to me.

What if this was a test? What if Rob was a cherub? It happened. You couldn’t trust
anybody
. They got to you, one way or the other.

What was I gonna do?

I got Mom dressed in black for the funeral, and the entire time she clutched my arm. I wore my Camp uniform, just because. Near the end, when the telescreen in the New Horizon Church was playing clips from some of Father’s sermons, she started swaying next to me. Everyone else would mistake it for grief, but I knew it was because seeing his long nose and cruel thin lips and yellow-brown eyes larger than life on the screen was a pinch right on every bruise he’d ever given either of us.

I held her shoulders and pretended I was crying.

I also kept Irv away from her most of the time. He had papers he was trying to make her sign, but I spilled coffee on them the first time he brought them over, and at the funeral I kept steering her away when I saw him starting to open up that prissy leather folio he carried.

The Myrmidons were there too, clean-cut and crewcut enough to give anyone the chills.

I palmed Harker a note during the receiving line, while Mom murmured things as people shook her hand. It was a crumpled square of notebook paper, the letters jagged as if I’d written in a hurry.

I’ve seen him. We’re meeting in Coughlin Park on Sunday, 2
PM
.

The way he took it and covered told me it was true, he had been at Temple. Or at another Holy Camp. You don’t learn those things anywhere else.

And yes, I was a rat, okay? I was a Judas. I knew it.

I managed to cover for Mom during the entire five hours, from service to reception in the huge taupe New Horizon second ballroom with a couple cherubs floating near the roof and buffet tables groaning under Velvecheese-glued goo. By the time we got home I was grainy-eyed and aching all over. Mattie had dinner waiting, and maybe she knew something was wrong by the way I didn’t eat. It was like being at Camp, only instead of indigestible crap on the plate there was plenty of good stuff; I just couldn’t make my stomach feel like taking it. The thought of putting anything in my mouth made me feel like throwing my guts up, again.

I led Mom upstairs after dinner, got her washed, and put her to bed. The amber bottles on her nightstand glowed in a shaft of evening sunlight. I started unscrewing their caps and shaking out the dosages. Little blue ones, bigger white ones, the pink-coated ones and the diamond-shaped violet ones. Each one a brick in the wall holding her down.

Mom lay against the pillows, chalky-pale, watching me with heavily lidded blue eyes. Her chin quivered a little. My hair was like hers, a pretty good chestnut, and we had the same mouth and cheekbones. I was always grateful that I looked more like her than Father.

“Do you really think he’s lying?” I whispered.

Mom moved slightly. She muttered something in response, a slurred jumble like a sleeptalker. My hand clenched around the pills. We stared at each other, and I could swear I saw something far back in her dilated pupils. Some kind of flash.

That was when they rang the doorbell and came to take her. Irv wasn’t going to brotherwife her after all.

He’d decided to send her to Rechristening.

“You’re not officially a Myrmidon trainee,” Harker said, his jaw set. “We can’t do anything.”

Brown was in the kitchen with Irv. The front door was wide open. They’d taken her away in a big black electro SUV, and Mattie was back in the utility room, probably hoping nobody would remember her.

“You promised!” Hoarse and shaking. I was bruised all over. They’d been efficient, at least—two of the Rechristening team holding me down while I fought and screamed, another two getting Mom up and out of the bed, one with Irv in the hall as Irv smirked.

He looked just like Father.

Harker folded his arms. “Tomorrow, your uncle will make sure you catch the bus to Coughlin. If Maguire shows, we’ll net him and you can enter the training program. If not, you’ll be on the next transport to Reeducation Center—and it won’t be as cushy as Temple, Miss Kingstree. Do we understand each other?”

Oh, I understood. I understood
perfectly
. I stood there and stared, numb.

He kept talking, relentlessly. “We’ll continue watching you. If he shows tomorrow, great. We’ll hardcore-orthodox him and you’ll be a Murican hero.”

If I opened my mouth I was going to start screaming again. So I just glared. When all else fails, you can shut up and refuse. It’s about the only thing you
can
do sometimes.

The Myrmidon’s high gloss faltered for a moment. He actually pinked a little around the cheekbones. “You’re a smart girl.” Softer, like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “Look, she would have been Rechristened anyway, no matter what. Now you don’t have her dragging you down. She was a useless mouth, and your father should’ve—”

I was across the room in a heartbeat. I managed a shot to his face before he kicked my legs out from under me, but he left me curled up on the parlor rug, sobbing, my hand throbbing and a ball of fire where he’d kicked me, one shiny wingtip sinking into my vulnerable belly.

I retreated while the Myrmidons were still in the kitchen with Irv. As soon as I scrambled up the stairs I grabbed the wooden penitence chair from Father’s office, jumping guiltily at every little sound. How many times had I sat crying in that chair, trying to hold the sobs back while Father worked on his sermons?

Now, in the middle of the night, it was braced up against my bedroom door. Which was a good thing, because the door started to rattle in its frame.

I was on my bed, curled up, still in my Camp uniform. The duffel sagged on the floor near the nightstand. My face was hot and dirty from crying, and my belly kept twitching with little pains.

Irv rattled the door a bit harder. I hugged my pillow, breathing out through my mouth because my nose was so stuffed, a hot claustrophobia under the blankets.

After twenty minutes Uncle Irving gave up. But he came back twice more.

I didn’t sleep.

Getting down out of the tree was the hard part—I dropped the duffel first, wincing when it hit. But everyone was asleep, dawn just creeping in. Irv was probably tuckered out after messing with my door all night.

Everything was gray, a chill spring fog hiding between the interchangeable houses. The manicured trees dripped little jewels of water. Dead silence filled every hole, pressed against every window.

There was getting through the fence, but I knew the lock was broken so that made it all right. I
also
knew to lift up to take some of the pressure off the hinges so it didn’t squeal. I peered around the corner of the garage and there was the big black electro SUV at the end of the street. I checked the sky—no cherubs I could see, and the fog would help. Things sometimes happened when the cherubs were covered up. Pastor Peter said there were heathens who had only pretended to be Goodchristians, and that’s why there was no crime. Heathens didn’t count.