UnSouled (24 page)

“Explain what you mean, Grace.”

Now that she’s the center of attention, she gets animated and excited, gesturing with her hands so much, it almost resembles old-world sign language. “See, if you stop them with roadblocks, they’ll break through each one soon enough. A better strategy would be to send them down some winding path that goes on and on, so’s they think they’re makin’ progress, but really they’re just spinnin’ their wheels.”

Stunned silence for a moment, and Pivane grins. “That actually makes sense.”

Lev looks to Connor, raising his eyebrows. Clearly there’s more to Grace than meets the eye.

Chal gets a far-off, but intense look, like he’s pondering an equation. “The Hopi are desperate for me to represent them in a major land dispute. I could agree to do it, and in return, the Hopi council could agree to announce that they’re giving Connor and Lev asylum.”

“So,” says Connor, putting it all together, “even if people around here start talking, the Juvies won’t hear it, because they’ll be all over the Hopi—and when they finally find out we’re not there, they’ll be back to square one!”

The mood, which just a moment ago lay flat with despair, is quickly rebounding toward hope. Lev, however, feels a sizeable lump in his throat. “Would you go out on that much of a limb for us?” he asks his hosts.

They don’t answer for a moment. Pivane won’t meet his eye, and Elina defers to Chal. Finally Chal speaks for all of them. “We did wrong by you before, Lev. This is a chance to make things right.”

Pivane grasps Lev’s shoulder hard enough that it hurts, but Lev doesn’t let it show. “I must admit I take a little bit of pride to be harboring modern folk heroes.”

“We’re not heroes,” Lev tells him.

At that Elina smiles. “No true hero ever believes that they are one,” she tells him. “So you go ahead, Lev, and keep denying it with every fiber of your being.”

27 • Starkey

Mason Starkey knows he’s a hero. He knows this beyond any shadow of doubt. The many lives he’s saved proves it. The evidence is all around him—his storks, all spirited from the death throes of the airplane graveyard, kept alive and safe through cleverness and well-placed sleight of hand. But it’s only a beginning. The groundwork has been laid for a great work—and for his own personal greatness, which he will more than earn. Starkey knows that there’s a grand destiny waiting for him, and his first foray into the limelight of history is about to begin.

“The Egret Academy,” says the pleasant woman, reading the logo on his forest-green T-shirt, as Starkey signs the guest registry. “Is that a parochial school?”

“Nondenominational,” Starkey tells her. “I’m the youth minister.”

She smiles at him, taking him at his word. How could she not? His clean-cut, blond, well-groomed appearance reeks of honesty and integrity.

“Is the school here in Lake Tahoe?”

“Reno,” he says without hesitation.

“Too bad. I’m looking for a good school for my own kids. One with the right moral values.”

Starkey gives her his most winning smile. He knows the names of her kids and her home address. Not that he’ll need the information this time, but it’s turned out to be a solid protective policy for the storks.

This time it’s not a campground but a high-end retreat. The Egret Academy has rented all ten cabins for the next four days. It’s an expense, but Jeevan has managed to squeeze even more money from the storks’ parental accounts, more than enough to pay for four days of comfort . . . and considering what’s coming next, his storks deserve it.

While the storks explore their new environment themselves, all in their new Egret Academy shirts, the woman gives Starkey the grand tour.

“The dining hall is to the left—you provide your own food of course, but the kitchen is fully stocked with cookware, dinnerware, and everything you’ll need. Tennis court and pool is up the hill. Come. I’ll show you the clubhouse. It’s down by the lake. We have a theater-quality TV, a classic arcade—even a bowling alley.”

“And a cloud connection?” Starkey asks. “We have to have a high-speed connection to the public nimbus.”

“Well, that goes without saying.”

BROCHURE

For more than twenty years, The Egret Academy has brought together knowledge and character in order to inspire our students to be leaders of the future. Our strong academic program is designed to pull information from the widest variety of sources and impart learning through experiential hands-on experience. At the Egret Academy, we strive to give every student a unique and personal education.

Through spiritual retreats and eye-opening field trips, we expose our students to the past, present, and future—all in a nurturing environment that encourages self-reliance as well as trust and camaraderie among fellow egrets.

Our emphasis on personal accountability and social responsibility is exemplified in our Peer Leadership Program, in which our youth ministers organize and run retreats of up to a hundred students at a time. By combining traditional education with special programs, projects, and activities, our faculty is dedicated to creating well-educated, well-rounded, ethically responsible students with the ability and the confidence to take on the world!

“You really outdid yourself this time, Mason. This place is fantastic.” Bam peers over Starkey’s shoulder at the computer screen that he and Jeevan strategize over. “I mean a bowling alley? I can’t even remember the last time I bowled.”

Starkey can’t help but be irritated by Bam’s intrusion, but he tries not to show it. “Enjoy it while you can,” he tells her. That sobers her up a bit.

“When are we going to tell the others the whole plan?”

“Tomorrow,” he tells her. “It will give them time to prepare themselves.”

Yet another clatter of bowling pins from the other side of the clubhouse sets Starkey’s nerves on end. The clubhouse is one big open space. He would much prefer quiet privacy right now.

“Bowl a game for me,” he tells Bam. I would but”—he holds up his stiff hand—“I bowl lefty.” It isn’t true, but it gets her to leave them alone.

On screen is a schematic of Cold Springs Harvest Camp, north of Reno. “I think I’ve figured out a way to jam communications,” Jeevan says. “I’ll need a few kids to help me out, though. Smart ones.”

“Choose whoever you want for your team,” Starkey tells him. “And anything you need, just let me know.”

Jeevan nods but, as always, seems nervous, concerned. He’s a kid who can never just relax and go with the flow.

“I’ve been thinking of after,” he says, “and how, after we hit
Cold Springs, we won’t be able to be out in public anymore. At all.”

“So give me options.”

Jeevan pecks at the computer, swipes various windows off the screen, and pulls up a map covered in blinking red dots. “I’ve isolated a few possibilities.”

Starkey clasps him on his shoulder with his good hand. “Excellent! Find us a new home, Jeevan. I have every faith in you.”

Which only makes Jeevan squirm.

As Starkey strolls through the clubhouse, the cacophony of his storks enjoying themselves transforms from a distraction to a testimony of all he has accomplished for them. But it’s only a glimpse of what he has planned for their future.

Yes, Mason Starkey is a hero. And in just a few days, the entire world will know.

28 • Risa

“Close your eyes,” Risa says. “I don’t want to get soap in them.”

The woman leans back, her Pomeranian in her lap. “Check the water first. I don’t like it too hot.”

This is Risa’s fourth day residing in Audrey’s salon. Each day she tells herself she’s going to leave, yet each day she doesn’t.

“And make sure you use the shampoo for dry hair,” the woman commands. “Not the kind for very dry hair, the kind for mild to moderately dry hair.”

It all stems from that first night. Audrey had spent the night there in the shop with Risa, because “a girl shouldn’t be alone after a thing like that.” Which she supposes is true for girls who have the luxury of not being alone. Risa rarely has
that luxury, so she was glad for the company. Apparently, the attack in the alley affected Risa much more deeply than she thought, because she had a string of nightmares all night. The only one she can recall is her recurring dream of countless pale faces looming over her and a sense that she could not escape them. On that night, dawn could not come soon enough.

“You’re not the usual shampoo girl, are you? I can tell because the other one has the most hideous breath.”

“I’m new. Please keep your eyes closed while I lather you up.”

Until today, Risa had paid for Audrey’s kindness by organizing the stockroom, but when one of her stylists called in sick today, she begged Risa to man the shampoo sink in a back alcove.

“What if someone recognizes me?”

“Oh, please!” Audrey had said. “You have a totally new look. And besides, these women don’t see anything past their own reflections.”

So far Risa has found that to be true. But washing the hair of wealthy women is not exactly her job of choice and is even more thankless than dispensing first aid at the Graveyard.

“Let me smell that conditioner. I don’t like it. Get me another.”

Tonight I’ll leave,
Risa tells herself. But nighttime comes and, again, she doesn’t. She’s not quite sure if her inertia is a problem or a blessing. Even though she didn’t have a specific destination before arriving here, she always had a vector—a direction to be moving. True it changed from day to day depending on what seemed the most likely direction of survival, but at least there was momentum. Now her momentum is gone. If she leaves here, where will she go? A place of greater safety? She doubts there is one.

That evening when Audrey closes shop, she treats Risa to something special.

“I’ve noticed your nails are in pretty bad shape. I’d like to give you a manicure.”

That makes Risa laugh. “Am I your Barbie doll now?”

“I run a beauty shop,” Audrey says. “It comes with the territory.” Then she does the oddest thing. She comes to Risa with scissors, snips off an inconspicuous lock of hair and shoves it into the compartment of a small machine that looks like an electric pencil sharpener. “Have you ever seen one of these?”

“What is it?”

“Electronic nail builder. Hair and nails are basically made of the same stuff. This device breaks down the hair, then applies it in fine layers on top of your nails. Put your finger in.” The hole, Risa now realizes, is not pencil-sized, but large enough for a woman’s fingertip. She’s hesitant, as putting one’s finger into a dark hole is a very counterintuitive thing, but in the end she acquiesces, and Audrey turns it on. It buzzes, vibrates, and tickles for a minute or two, and when she pulls her finger out, her nail, which had been uneven and ragged, is now smooth with a perfect curve.

“I programmed it for the shortest setting,” Audrey tells her. “Somehow I can’t imagine you with long nails.”

“Neither can I.”

Risa endures the process for all ten nails. It takes almost an hour.

“Not very efficient, is it?”

“No. You’d think they’d make one that can do a whole hand at once, but they don’t. Something to do with limitations on the patent. Anyway, I use it only when someone has patience and can actually appreciate the thing.”

“So it doesn’t get much use at all, does it?”

“Nope.”

Audrey, Risa realizes, is probably around the same age as her own birth mother, whoever she is. She wonders if a mother-daughter relationship would be something like this. She has no way to judge. All the kids she knew growing up didn’t have parents, and after she left the state home, she only knew kids whose parents had thrown them away.

Audrey leaves for the night, and Risa settles in the comfortable niche she’s made herself in the storeroom, complete with a bedroll and comforter that Audrey provided. Audrey has offered her the foldout in her apartment, and even the stylists, who are all as kind as Audrey, have offered to take her in, but there’s only so much hospitality Risa’s willing to accept.

That night she dreams of the cold, impassive multitude again. She’s playing a Bach étude much too fast on a piano that’s hopelessly out of tune, and right in front of her are the countless looming faces lined up and stacked like shelves of trophies. Deathly pale. Disembodied. Alive and yet not alive. They open their mouths but they don’t speak. They would reach for her but they don’t have hands. She can’t tell if they mean her ill, but they certainly don’t mean her well. They reek of need, and the deepest terror of the dream is not knowing what it is they so desperately desire from her.

When she pulls herself out of it, her fingers, new nails and all, are drumming against her blanket, still struggling to play the étude. She has to turn on the light and leave it on for the rest of the night. When she closes her eyes, she can still see those faces like afterimages on her retina. Is it possible to have the afterimage of a dream? She can’t help but feel she’s seen these faces before, and not just in a dream. It’s something real, something tangible that she can’t place. Whatever it is, she hopes she never sees it—never sees
them
again.

•   •   •

First thing in the morning—just five minutes after opening, two Juvey-cops come into the salon, and Risa’s heart nearly stops. Audrey’s already there, but none of her stylists are. Risa, knowing that turning and running will not go over well, hangs her hair in her face and turns her back to them, pretending to stock one of the stylist’s stations.

“You open for business?” one of them asks.

“That depends,” says Audrey. “What can I do for you, Officer?”

“It’s my partner’s birthday. I’m giving her a makeover.”

Now Risa dares to look. One of the Juvies is a woman. Neither of them takes much notice of her.

“Perhaps you could come back when my stylists arrive.”

He shakes his head. “Shift starts in an hour. Gotta do it now.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to work with that, then.” Audrey comes over to Risa, speaking sotto voce. “Here’s some money; go get us doughnuts. Go out the back way and don’t come back until they’re gone.”