Wasteland (Wasteland - Trilogy) (17 page)

“Esther,” said Rafe. “You are hereby Shunned from Prin.”

He nodded, and one of the others fumbled to undo her bonds. Another handed Esther a nylon backpack which she took, numbly. In it, she knew that there would be supplies meant to last a week or so.

For an instant, Esther sensed that this last person was viewing her with regret, even sympathy. But the moment passed and whoever it was joined the others, who stood together, watching in silence.

In a daze, Esther walked across the lake surface and toward the rising sun.

On a grassy patch behind the bank, the seven townspeople surrounded Caleb. He was in the middle, holding a long, wooden stick with an angled end, the word
EASTON
printed along the laminated shaft.

Caleb addressed one of the students, a tall boy. “Tell me what you’re going to do,” he said.

“I’m going to go with the motion of the push and see where it takes me,” said the boy.

Caleb nodded. Then he raised the stick and used it to shove the boy in the right shoulder. The boy grabbed the stick with both hands and pushed back.

Caleb shook his head.

“No,” he said. “See how you’re fighting back? You’re pushing
against
the motion. I want you to go with it instead and see where it takes you.” The tall boy nodded, brow furrowed with concentration.

This was the second day of class and the boy with the red hair was surprised; things were going much better than before. Somehow, he had absorbed some of Caleb’s earlier verbal lessons. Now he was focused on the actual basics of fighting.

That morning, they had spent three hours on punching. The boy hadn’t realized there was so much to learn and how little he knew: how to make a fist to best protect your thumb and knuckles. How to aim for a distance a hand’s width beyond your intended target to maximize the impact. How, if you lacked arm strength, you could use speed to compensate. How to increase your power by stepping into the punch with your entire body. How to relax your body until the instant you threw the punch.

Now Caleb lifted the staff again. “We’re going to try it slowly,” he said, “and this time, don’t fight it. Relax and try going with the motion.” As he pushed the stick against the tall boy’s left shoulder, the boy allowed himself to be guided backward, his body twisting.

“Where is your right arm going?” Caleb asked.

The boy gestured: It was swinging inward.

“Now make a fist with it. Think about using that natural movement and using it to help you punch inward. Again.”

The two repeated the move, and this time, the boy succeeded in turning the attack into a roundhouse punch.

“Do you see what you’re doing?” asked Caleb. “By going with the motion, you’re decreasing the damage to your shoulder. At the same time, you’re using it to generate an unexpected attack, from the other side.”

As the tall boy thought this over, everyone else in the circle murmured. “Thanks,” said the tall boy, beaming with excitement.

Caleb glanced at the sky; the sun was almost overhead and he made a quick calculation. After he had worked with everyone in the circle, he would have only a short time to teach basic self-defense moves. Then he would devote the afternoon to beginning techniques in slingshot, sap, and short club.

With any luck, they would be finished by sundown.

He knew he was going quickly, much too quickly, for his lessons to be truly useful. If they could even remember what he was teaching them, his students would have to practice each move for many weeks, hundreds if not thousands of times. Only then would their new skills start to become automatic and, therefore, any help at all. But even the best of them would be nothing more than mere beginners: eager, perhaps, but clumsy and unskilled.

To learn to fight well took months, even years of training. And he had spent little more than a day with them.

It was the best he could do. He should have left Prin already, gone that morning. Yet at the last moment he decided to stay a day longer. He unexpectedly felt obligated to these people and wanted to leave them with at least a fighting chance to protect themselves.

There was another reason that was even more important. He had to see Esther again.

“How are we doing?”

Caleb looked up; Rafe stood in the doorway of the bank. His hands clasped behind his back, he rocked up and down on his heels, checking out the class. Caleb noted the
we
in his question. This was the first time the town’s leader had deigned to show up. While learning to fight was something for others to do, Rafe seemed happy to share the credit.

“
We’ll
get there,” Caleb replied.

Rafe gestured for Caleb to approach him. “What’s your guess on how long it’ll take?” he asked in a low voice. “How many days do you think?”

Days?
Caleb thought.
More like months.
But he didn’t say it.

“Hard to figure,” he replied.

But there was no time to keep talking. The red-haired boy had seized the staff and was using it to prod the others, with a bit too much enthusiasm, in an attempt to drill them in the technique they had just been taught.

“More slowly,” Caleb said, walking back to the group. “It’s not a natural reaction . . . you have to feel it first. Let me show you . . .”

It was sunset. His pack strapped onto the back of his bicycle, Caleb stopped in the street outside the building marked
STARBUCKS
. He didn’t want this to be the last time he saw Esther. Yet how in good conscience could he ask her to join him?

He looked up at the second-floor window, half open and framed by a fluttering white curtain. He called up, just loud enough to be heard.

“Hey?”

After a minute, a girl came to the glass and looked down. Wearing a flowered bathrobe held close to her throat, she looked haunted. This must be Esther’s older sister, Caleb thought. He raised a hand to get her attention.

“Is Esther at home?” he asked.

At the name, the girl winced. There was a pause during which she did not reply. She untied the curtain, which fell and covered the window. Then, just a shadow, she walked away.

Caleb rode on, disturbed. Although he knew he should be leaving, the weird encounter made him want to see Esther more than ever. So, as evening deepened, he continued to search for her.

He headed along the main street of Prin, glanced down alleyways, passed the meeting hall, the old parking garage, the bank. By now, the streets were largely deserted; most people were home from work. Whenever he saw anyone, he asked, “You know Esther? Where she might be?” Each time, he got the same response: averted eyes, an evasive shrug, an unpersuasive no.

Heading down one street was a group of stragglers. They stopped, recognizing Caleb. Some were in awe, too shy to speak. He asked them the same questions.

“Any of you know Esther? Where she might be?”

One girl found the courage to respond. “She’s gone.”

“Gone?” Caleb said. “What do you mean?”

“She’s just gone,” the girl said. “For good.”

The others glared at her. One tugged at her sleeve, whispering that they’d be late. But it was clearly an excuse.

“But where did she—” Caleb started to ask, but they were walking away, the girl shooting him an apologetic gaze over her shoulder.

Caleb stood there, still straddling his bicycle. Now he found the idea of leaving impossible. Despite what the girl said, he couldn’t believe it was true. Esther would never have left without telling him. And where would she go? So he did the only thing he could, continue his methodical search for Esther, up and down the streets of Prin.

Eventually, he made it to the railroad tracks on the outskirts of town. The tree where Esther had perched, watching him, was empty, as were the surrounding fields. It had been many hours; by now, the horizon was touched with pink.

He glanced up. Outlined by the rising sun, someone on a bike had crested a nearby hill and stood looking down at him. The face was obscured by a black hood.

Another one of Levi’s boys, Caleb thought. What did he want?

At that moment, the sun shifted, momentarily blinding him. Still, he could see that the boy’s arm had risen, in what appeared to be a wave.

Caleb raised his hand in response. As he did, he blocked the light and perceived the truth: The boy was holding a fiberglass hunting bow and drawing back the string.

There was a hissing sound, and Caleb felt a sudden blow. He stumbled, and a moment later, heat blossomed across his shoulder, surrounding the feathered shaft embedded in it.

T
HE DAY BEFORE, THE HEAT HAD BEEN INESCAPABLE
.

It not only beat down from the sun; it radiated up from the concrete and oozing tar. The air itself shimmered with arid heat, forming waves that danced across the horizon.

Esther was not prepared for such relentless exposure.

Even with her thin hoodie tied closely around her face, her lips and nose were soon chapped and blistering. She did not have sunglasses, and the ceaseless glare was excruciating to her unprotected eyes. And although she was wearing sneakers, the bottoms of her feet were burning through the thin rubber soles.

Only now, an hour since she had left the boundaries of Prin, did the full impact of what had happened hit her.

She had only enough supplies to last a few days, she realized, and no weapons, no tools, and no shelter. She would never see her home again or climb her stairs or sleep in her bed. She would never see anyone she knew again, neither Caleb nor Sarah.

At the thought of them, Esther felt a flicker of hope. But a moment later, she recalled with a sinking heart that anyone who helped a person who was Shunned incurred the same sentence as well.

Except for the variants.

Variants had no need for the laws and regulations of the town. They followed their own rules and meted out their own justice.

With a pang, Esther recalled that she and Skar had parted on bad terms. Moreover, she knew that she had ignored her friend’s desperate attempts to contact her. But Skar had never been the kind of person to hold a grudge; surely, she would forgive Esther when she found out the trouble she was in and convince her tribe to take pity on her.

By now, it was midmorning. On foot, it would take Esther until sundown to reach the variants’ camp, but at least she knew where she was heading. She took off for the foothills that lay on the horizon.

Mostly, she ran at a swift trot, ignoring the agonizing blisters that formed on her feet. Even so, it was not until the sun was disappearing over the horizon that she saw the poisoned black lake glittering ahead of her. She veered from the roadway, hurdling the low metal fence and plunging into the deep undergrowth.

After the bright heat of the highway, the relatively dark and dappled forest was a relief. Esther toiled up the steep hillside, passing the tree with its faint white mark. As she neared the camp, she went slower and more cautiously. Every several minutes, she gave her special, two-tone call. Soon, she was at the edge of a small meadow, the last clearing before the final ascent to the variant camp. She was about to repeat her call when the whistle was returned. From across the meadow, she saw a flicker of movement as Skar stepped out from the trees.

“Esther?” Skar called.

The girl emerged from her hiding place and the two ran to each other. As Esther hugged her friend, overwhelming relief and exhaustion caused her knees to buckle and she almost collapsed.

“What happened?” Skar asked. Concerned, she led Esther to a flat boulder, where the two sat. “Every day, I have been signaling you and you haven’t responded. I was worried you were still angry with me. But now, I see something else was wrong.”

Esther nodded. “I’m in real trouble,” she said in a low voice. Then in a rush, she explained everything that had occurred.

Throughout, Skar listened without speaking, her expression unusually grave.

“So I need your help,” Esther concluded haltingly. She was aware that her normally talkative friend was not saying anything, and she found this disturbing. “Please. I need you to ask your tribe if I can stay here.”

Biting her lip, Skar dropped her gaze.

“It is not so simple anymore,” she said at last. Then she looked up at Esther. “Why didn’t you answer my signal before? I wanted so much to explain to you face to face. Then you would understand my situation.”

“What do you mean? What situation?”

Skar held out her arm.

Esther glanced down. Her friend was still wearing the meaningless assortment of silver bracelets and wristwatches that she had on the last time. But beneath the jewelry, there was something new, something different.

Among the familiar whorls and patterns written on Skar’s skin in scar tissue and ash, there was a vivid new line that snaked its way around and up the forearm, from the wrist bone to elbow. The wound was so fresh, it was still dark red with clotted blood and was framed by an angry ridge of pink, inflamed skin. One could still make out the dirt that had been rubbed into the cut, to maximize the scarring.