Wanderers (25 page)

As the minutes passed, it only grew worse. Taking in shallow sips of air made it no easier to breathe. Feeling the start of panic, Esther sensed that her body was starting to seize up, as her lungs began to fight for air and adrenaline coursed through her throbbing veins. A distant rhythm grew stronger and quicker, until it seemed to shake the van itself. Dimly, she realized it was the pounding of her heart, beating faster and faster. In the darkness that surrounded her, her eyes began to glaze over with a faint red miasma that pulsed in time with the accelerating beat.

I will not die.

And as the words formed in her mind, Esther realized she was not alone.

Someone or something was sitting in the far corner, where the blackness was absolute. Whatever it was gave off the faintest glow, the palest of outlines that dissolved as soon as Esther tried to fix her gaze on it and pin it down. After a while, she stopped; and only then did the vision begin to grow clearer, viewed from the corner of her eye.

It was a slim figure shrouded in robes, sitting cross-legged and watchful, hands folded in its lap. Esther blinked rapidly, trying to clear the red fog.

“Sarah?”

Sarah sat, looking the way she had when she was radiant and alive, her long, dark hair framing her pretty face and streaming past her shoulders. With a surge of joy, Esther reached forward to seize her sister by the hands. Yet even as her hands closed on air, the swirling vapors began to darken and coarsen, transforming into something altogether different.

It was now Lewt.

And she could not pull herself away.

His chest was torn open by his massive wound and blood pumped out, staining his shirt and jeans black. To her horror, Esther could feel the thick heat of it pouring over her arms, making her hands sticky with it, as the stink of copper filled the air.

Esther,
he said. Or was she imagining it?

The boy leaned his face forward in a parody of a kiss, and every nerve in Esther's body recoiled. He only seemed to gain in substance as she fought him. Yet the more she struggled, the more real and corporeal his spirit became and the more she felt her life drain out of her as his grip tightened and pulled her closer and closer.

She realized he would never let her go, no matter how desperately she wanted him to.

You had no choice.

Although no one had spoken them aloud, the words rang through her mind as clearly as if someone had. The voice, too, was familiar somehow, yet Esther could not place it. Was it Skar? Sarah?

Esther stopped struggling.

You had no choice.

It was neither a curse nor a threat, but the truth: a terrible reality she had to face and own. It was the only thing that could take the place of the guilt that threatened to consume her.

As she took in this thought, a great weight seemed to lift from her and the strangling grasp of Lewt's arms dissolved to nothingness.

Esther sat in the darkness, gulping for breath. And as her thundering heart quieted, she became aware that another apparition was waiting.

Someone sat across from her, head tilted to one side in a familiar way, as if appraising her. And even before she could discern his features, Esther already knew who it was, could tell without even looking, the way she could in real life, whenever she walked down a road or entered a room or woke in the middle of the night. It was him. He was there, and she was already crying out and stumbling across the floor and lunging into his arms, arms that for a few precious moments felt real and solid and strong.

Caleb.

He was holding her the way he had thousands of times before, his face buried deep in her hair as she clung to him.

He raised his face to hers and caressed her cheek; and as their lips touched, it was as if all of him poured into her. As she received him, she sensed a similar force within her, something she never knew she possessed, reaching to join him. Their spirits—for what else could they be?—began dissolving into one another, and Esther felt what it had been like to physically love Caleb, only more intense, more profound, more sacred.

She had no idea how long it lasted; and when it was over, she found herself alone, curled on her side and bathed in such love that she could hardly breathe.

And she was tiny, so small that she barely filled the soft, gigantic arms that now enveloped her, rocking her.

Whoever held her must have been a giant, a monster of enormous size. Yet Esther wasn't afraid; in fact, she realized with a sense of wonder that she had never known such peace before, such trust.

It was her mother.

As Esther struggled to see her face, the face that had haunted her for years, she could sense the specter dissolving, fleeing as the others had.

Yet even as it vanished, it left a piece of itself behind, a tiny seed of strength deep within Esther.

It was time to join the others.

After Esther had pushed her to the ground, Asha had stormed through the dark forest by herself.

She knew she wasn't supposed to wander off alone like this. Eli had spoken to her about it, using the stern voice that sometimes annoyed her. But she didn't care, not even if he got mad at her. She picked up a leafy branch and lashed it against a mossy boulder again and again until it splintered in her hand. For extra measure, she kicked pinecones and rocks and anything else she could find as hard as she could.

She was so mad at Esther.

Before, Esther had always been nice to her, even in Prin. One time, some of the bad boys from an Excavation had teased her and Esther had stuck up for her.
She wasn't scared of them at all,
Asha recalled with wonder,
even though there were three of them and one of her.

For a long time after that, Asha had wanted to be like Esther. She wanted to be brave like her, she wanted to not care what others thought, and mostly she wanted to seem as grown-up as she was.

But now Asha
was
grown-up. She had found a partner, just like others had. The blue partnering tie she wore around her wrist made her just as good as everybody else, maybe even better. Joseph, for instance, had never been partnered even though he was the oldest of them all.

It turned out Asha didn't need Esther, after all. She was fine all by herself, just her and Eli.

If only they had a baby, then everything would be perfect.

At the thought of babies, Asha grew even more angry. There already
was
a baby, and it seemed impossible and unfair that she couldn't have him to herself. After all, she loved Kai the best, more than anybody else did. She longed to keep him with her all the time, to sleep with him, to see his little face first thing when she woke in the morning. But no . . . he was Esther's. That was what everyone kept saying, and she was sick of hearing it.

“We can make our own baby,” Eli told her again and again.

Yet so far, nothing had happened. Asha wasn't dumb; she knew girls and boys made babies together, and that they were supposed to grow in your belly. But every morning before Eli awoke, she would pull up her T-shirt and check herself. Her white stomach would be as flat and pinched as it always was.

Asha glanced around. The sun had almost risen and there was enough light to see that she was deep in the forest, so far from the others she couldn't hear them. This worried her for a moment; the last time she had wandered away by herself, she had run into the bad boys. But the woods here were peaceful and quiet.

Then something caught her eye.

It was a flicker of movement past the trees; it made Asha pause and cock her head. At the same time, there was a distant crunch, the faraway sound of twigs snapping.

“Hello?” she called.

Asha approached carefully. She didn't want to scare it away, whatever it was. But as she drew closer, curiosity overcame caution.

It was hidden from view, tucked beneath the sprawling roots of a large tree. The underlying earth had been dug away, forming some kind of underground warren or den; there were flattened piles of dirt on all sides, marked with deep horizontal grooves and footprints that looked almost human.

This was where the sounds were coming from.

Asha squatted down in front of the tree, taking care to avoid the piles of scat and tufts of coarse black hair that littered the ground.

“Hello?”

Something moved in the dark recesses beneath the roots, and a pair of shiny black eyes blinked at her. Asha waited. Sure enough, a small head soon emerged. It was black, with softly rounded ears and a long snout that sniffed the air.

The entire animal was not much bigger than Kai. And it was adorable.

“Ohhh,” breathed Asha.

She reached forward and touched the animal's brushy black fur. It reached up to smell her hand, then licked it with a tongue that was warm and surprisingly soft. Asha giggled.

Then she made a decision.

She reached into the den with both arms and took hold of the animal. It was plump and warm and when she lifted it clear of its bedding, it let out a series of piercing squeaks.

“Shhh,” said Asha. “It's all right. It's all right.”

She knelt down and cradled the creature, holding it close. It seemed to trust her, and reached up to lick her nose. Again Asha laughed out loud as she thought about what she should do.

It was soft and cuddly, something Asha could carry around. Perhaps it could ride in one of the wagons, with Joseph and Kai. It was so small, it probably wouldn't need too much to eat, either. And she was certain Eli would grow to love it, as she already did . . . or at least until they had their own, real baby.

Besides, it was alone and needed a mother.

Holding it with both arms, she stood up.

Then she turned around.

“Asha!”

There was no reply from the woods, and Eli felt his usual anger and embarrassment. How many times could the girl keep running away? He was annoyed with her and not proud that he felt that way. Still, Asha's erratic nature exasperated him. With all the patience in the world, he had still not been able to tame it.

Silas had offered to come along and find her, and that made it even worse.

“It's okay,” Eli had said, his voice tight. “I can handle it.”

Silas shrugged. “Maybe I can help.”

His response mortified Eli: It suggested that the others saw Asha as a liability. This reflected on Eli, and not in a good way. It made him even more determined to improve the situation: He would lay down the law for Asha once and for all when he found her.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Come on.”

Now the smaller boy moved ahead of him through the dense trees, whistling through his teeth for the girl. That was also humiliating; it reminded Eli of the way Aras used to summon his dog. He made a point of calling her name, instead.

“Asha!”

Far ahead, he could only dimly hear the boy's whistle. Then it stopped.

Moments later, Silas came crashing back through the underbrush. His face was white and his mouth kept working, although no sound came out.

“What is it?” Eli asked.

Silas was trembling and short of breath, unable to speak. Unnerved, Eli tried to step past him. But although Silas was nearly half his size, he cut Eli off, grabbing him by the arm.

“No,” he gasped. “Don't go. It's bad. It's—”

Now frightened, Eli grabbed Silas's narrow shoulders and pushed him to one side. Then he broke into a run. He crashed through the underbrush, branches and vines whipping his face.

“
Asha! Asha!
”

Then he stopped.

He saw a large tree, its roots half exposed and reaching from the ground. Between the roots was a hollowed-out area. The tree, the roots, and surrounding vegetation were wet and glistening, stained a vivid red.

Eli took it all in without comprehension, seeing what lay scattered in and around the area, yet not understanding what he saw. Then his eye caught something lying trampled on the ground nearby.

It was a tattered blue ribbon.

He reeled back with horror, his hand to his mouth. Then, dropping to his knees, he vomited heavily.

Silas had followed and now ran to him. He grabbed the larger boy under the arms and attempted to pull him to his feet. But he was not trying to comfort him.

“We got to get going,” Silas kept saying. “Before it comes back.”

It was only later that Eli was able to understand what had happened. Asha had interrupted a bear cub and its mother in their den. Or perhaps she had stolen a cub and paid the consequences. Nature had its own rules, as Aras had taught them, and woe to anyone who violated them.

But, at first, Eli could only cast blame.

When the two boys returned to the camp, he found the others near the opening to the woods. With Skar watching, Esther stood over a grave, freshly dug and filled, patting down the earth with their one shovel.

Eli could not bear to look at her. Because of her, Asha was dead. He kept silent as Silas told the others what they had found in the forest. Then as everyone glanced at him in shock and sympathy, he spat out what was on his mind.

“Why the hell did we leave Prin in the first place?”

No one answered.

“Why? Just tell me that!” His voice was choked.

Esther didn't shrink from the question.

“We had no more home there,” she said in an even voice. “We had to find somewhere better.”

Eli pointed at her, his hand shaking. “It was all you, from the start. Your idea!” His voice broke. “If we hadn't left—” He couldn't finish. But Esther stood her ground.

“We tried to take care of her,” she said. “We all did, and you above all.”

At this, the boy reeled backward, as if struck. Then his hands rose to cover his face, the truth hitting him. It was he who had failed to protect Asha. It was his fault that she was dead.

Eli began to sob.

Esther watched him. For a second, she wavered, not sure how to respond. Then she approached and put her arms around him. He fell into her embrace.