Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

Before he can move to open the door, it swings toward him, his father’s large frame filling the doorway. He feels the tears coming, but he squeezes his eyes and pushes them away.

His father takes two strides and pulls him into a hug, lifting him off his feet, warming him from his head to his toes.

And still the boy doesn’t cry.

But he does hug his father back, as tight as he can. Because what do all his questions matter? His father loves him. Janice, too. What else does he need?

Images of children playing, tagging each other, flying kites, and climbing trees cycle through his head, but he ignores them, pretends they don’t matter. “Nothing,” he whispers into his father’s neck, answering his own internal question with what he knows is a lie. A beautiful, perfect lie.

“What, Son?” his father asks, finally setting him down.

“Nothing,” he repeats, which his father thinks is an answer, rather than the word he spoke a moment ago.

H
arrison jumps from the couch and does a little dance when the news story comes on.

The Slip has been found!

When he finishes celebrating and turns back to his mother, Janice, she’s staring at him, wearing a frown as deep as the overflowing oceans. “They caught the Slip,” he says, wishing his voice sounded stronger.

“They killed her,” his mother says.

Harrison had forgotten that that’s what they do to unauthorized children. But he doesn’t want to think about it right now. She wasn’t even supposed to be born so does it really matter? All he cares about is that… “Dad will be around more now, right? Maybe he could come to one of my hoverball games? We’re the best team in my age group. Coach says I may be able to move up to play with the older kids soon.” He realizes how fast he’s talking, how he’s forgotten to breathe. He stops to suck air into his lungs, waiting expectantly for his mom to answer.

“Baby, I—I’m sorry.” She looks so old all of a sudden. Her eyes are puffy and red, with lines spider-webbing around them. She pats the spot on the couch next to her. Harrison clambers up beside her, tucking his legs beneath him and wondering what she has to be sorry about.

“We’re not a normal family,” she says, putting her arm around him. Her eyes dart to the walls, to the ceiling, even to the holo-screen, as if someone might be listening. “Even now that the Slip is caught, your father still won’t be around much. There is always more work to be done.”

Angers boils up inside him, his fists clenching in response. “That’s not fair,” he says. “I’m a good player. Why doesn’t he want to watch me?”

“He does,” his mother says. “I swear it. He just has…a lot on his mind.”

The boy is on his feet in an instant, not caring that he’s never seen his mother look so sad. “I hate him!” he shouts. “And I hate having a weird mom, too!” He runs to his room, throwing the door shut behind him with a floor-shaking slam.

The tears flow hot and fast, soaking into his pillow. But for some reason, the more he cries the more determined he gets. Even if his family isn’t normal, he will be. He’ll have the most friends at school and be the best hoverball player in the world.

And then it won’t matter that he never sees his father and that his mom is different than the other moms.

W
hen he’s eight years old, the nameless boy’s father tells him he’s an excellent swimmer. It’s a nice compliment, but the boy already knows it. He can swim for two straight hours, doing six there-and-back laps to the center of the River, his arms and legs in perfect coordination, strong and powerful. Although he’s grown out of watching Zoran, he thinks he might be as good a swimmer as his old hero. They have to get up earlier and earlier to give him the time he needs to practice.

His father forbids him from swimming any further than halfway toward the lights in the distance.

Although the boy has sworn off asking questions that only bring him pain, his father surprises him by sharing things sometimes. Interesting things. Things he’s always wondered about.

“Those lights are the city,” he says today, when the boy muscles himself out of the water after another two hour swim. His father has already turned off his portable holo-screen, a habit he’s maintained since the last time the boy saw him cry.

The boy suspected as much, but he doesn’t say that, just gazes at the lights, which are growing harder and harder to see as the sky races toward morning. Soon they’ll blink out, useless until the sun finishes its arc across the sky.

“It’s called Saint Louis,” his father continues. And the river is the Mississippi—try saying that five times fast.”

The boy doesn’t try, as he doesn’t think his father really means him to. A question buzzes on his tongue—is that where you work?—but he holds it back easily, barely even thinking about it.

“The river is two miles wide here. It used to be a sixth of that width, many, many years ago.”
What happened?
the boy’s brain says. His mouth says nothing. He has the sudden urge to get back in the water, to swim another lap.

His father hands him a towel and the boy wraps it around himself, even though he’s now so used to the cold water that he barely notices how it raises bumps on his skin. They make eye contact and his father grips his shoulder. “Son, I’ve made so many mistakes. So many they’re uncountable.” This is not what he expected his father to say. The boy feels as if he should hold his breath, but his lungs are demanding air, so he continues taking deep breaths, his chest rising and falling. “All I wanted was to keep you safe, but I won’t be able to forever. I have enemies.
You
have enemies, even if you don’t know them and they don’t know you.”

The boy wants to scream. He can’t ask questions, and when his father tells him things they only make him more confused. Nothing in his world makes sense. Nothing except the rush of the water over his skin and the powerful feeling of conquering the forces trying to drag him to the bottom of the river. The Mississippi.

“I’m sorry, Son,” his father says, and the boy realizes he’s frowning so much it’s giving him a headache. “I couldn’t tell you everything before. Still can’t.”

“For my own protection,” the boy says.

His father misses the sarcasm in his voice, and says, “Exactly. One day maybe you’ll understand why I’ve made the choices I’ve made. One day maybe
I’ll
understand them, too.”

Despite the heat rushing through his veins, the boy can’t stay angry, not when the man before him looks so vulnerable, so much
less
than what he used to be. Broken. Old. It’s like the last few years have aged him by decades.

“Maybe,” the boy says.

“When I’m not around, I pray you won’t hate me for what I’ve done,” his father says, the conversation taking yet another surprising turn.

The boy’s eyes dart to his father’s. “I don’t hate you, Father.”

His father grabs his hand, squeezing it tightly. “I love you, Son. Don’t you ever forget that. Janice and I both love you, and we always will. No matter what happens.”

As usual, the boy senses that there are so many more words behind what his father says, but he doesn’t dare ask. Not now, not when his father looks like a cracked pane of glass. Not when his questions might make him cry again. Might make them both cry.

“I won’t forget it,” he says. “I love you, too.”

As the sky turns yellow, father and son make their way back up the weed-choked path, arms around each other, the boy barely feeling the sharp stones under his leathery, calloused feet.

~~~

The next night the boy’s head barely hits the pillow before his father’s hand gently shakes his shoulder. Or at least that’s how it feels. Did he even sleep at all?

“What time is it?” he mumbles.

“Two in the morning,” his father says, his grizzled face sharpening as the boy slowly wakes up. It’s two hours earlier than usual. Janice won’t be happy if he falls asleep during her lessons again.

In silence, he sleepwalks around, his father removing his sleep clothes and helping him squeeze into something tight and rubbery, starting at his feet and pulling it all the way to his head, where it covers his scalp but leaves a hole for his face. It’s too dark to see, but when he runs his hands over the material it’s smooth—almost like a second skin. “What is this?” the boy asks.

“Something to keep you warm in the water,” his father says.

The boy remembers how cold he used to be when he swam, but now… “I don’t need warmth,” he says.

“Better to be safe,” his father says.

Why now? Why after all the freezing cold mornings spent sojourning with the brown water of the River? But he doesn’t argue, doesn’t ask.

The suit seems to squash the air out of his lungs. “Too tight,” the boy says, struggling to get his breath.

“You’ll get used to it,” his father says. “It’s meant to be tight. So you can swim better, like a dolphin…or a sea lion.”

As good a swimmer as the boy is, he’s seen dolphins and sea lions swim out of the holo-screen, and he’ll never swim like that.

In the kitchen, his father forces him to eat three granola bars from the food-maker, even though he’s not hungry. What’s going on? Why is this morning so different to all the other ones?

Still chewing the last bar, he heads for the door, anxious to get out of the house and into the water. Funny that the water feels as much like home as the house now; the River used to be an insurmountable obstacle to him.

“No,” his father says. “Not yet. There’s one more thing to do.”

His father steers him to the couch, lays his head back. Lifts his feet up and rests them on a pillow, the way Janice sometimes sleeps.

In the tight, rubbery suit the boy feels too hot.

“Open your eyes, Son,” his father commands.

They’re already open, so it’s a weird thing to ask, but the boy opens them even wider. His father unscrews the cap from a silver canister, fishes around in it with a single finger, and plucks out a small, curved object. It almost looks like a shaving of glass, but he sees it flex when his father moves it. It’s too soft to be glass.

“Left eye first,” he says, aiming his finger—and the strange bauble—at the boy’s eye.

“What? No,” the boy says, closing both eyes tightly. He doesn’t want anything in his eye—particularly not his father’s finger. Or the strange thing from the silver canister.

“Son,” his father says. There’s a slight pressure on his arm—his father’s hand. “You have to trust me.”

But what are you
doing
to me? The urge to break his own no-questions rule is so powerful he almost blurts it out. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.

“Good,” his father says. “This will help you. Trust me.”

His father’s words trigger a memory, something Janice once said. “Trust should be natural, not forced. Do not give away your trust so easily, child.”

But this is his father, not some nobody. Surely he can trust him. He opens his eyes wide again, trying to go to another place, to pretend his father isn’t about to poke his eye out.

His finger moves closer until it’s all the boy can see out of one eye, the clear curved object shining like a teardrop. His father pushes it into his eye, and he can’t stop himself from blinking furiously.

There are bugs crawling all over his eyeball. “Ahhh!” he cries, scrubbing at his eye with the back of his hand. “Get them out!”

“Son…SON!” his father barks, grabbing his hand and pulling it away from his face, pinning it against the couch. It’s the loudest voice he’s ever used on the boy, and for a moment the photo of his father from the holo-screen appears in his mind: the frowning, angry man with the name ‘Michael Kelly’ pinned beneath him. For the first time he really believes they’re the same man. Denial falls away like a discarded robe, leaving the boy feeling naked and vulnerable.

The bugs continue squirming and crawling beneath his closed eyelid, but the sensation lessens with each passing second. The boy’s eye flutters open, feeling like normal again.

“If anyone asks you, your eyes are light brown, like the wood on our door,” his father says.

His world is upside down. Light brown? No, that makes no sense. His eyes are ‘as blue as the sky, glittering with turquoise gemstones,’ as Janice always told him. He’s seen them in the mirror, which doesn’t lie. Only humans lie.

“Okay?” his father says.

The boy shakes his head, not okay at all.

His father holds up a mirror and he almost faints. One eye is blue and the other brown. He wipes a hand across the glass, smearing the face in the mirror. He still has one brown eye.

“Okay?” his father asks again.

The boy nods numbly, sitting on one of his hands to resist the urge to jab his fingers in his eye to try to remove the unnatural brown color that his father stuck in there.

As if reading his mind, his father says, “This is all to protect you. These devices are extremely rare and hard to get. You’ll have trouble getting more. No one can know who you are.”

The boy wants to scream. Even he doesn’t know who he is, so how would anyone else? And anyway, he doesn’t know
anyone else
, except for Janice. The suit is hot and starting to itch. There’s a buzzing in his head, as if the bugs have moved into his brain and are unpacking their things, making themselves at home. His father is the man on the holo-screen, a stranger, not someone he’s known his whole life. And he’s got another clear, curved ‘device’ on his fingertip, floating it in the direction of his other eye.

Instead of screaming, the boy opens his eye wider. Device in, he blinks furiously, bugs crawling, resisting the urge to rip his own eyeball from his skull…

It’s over. His brown-eyed reflection in the smudged mirror makes him gasp. He throws the mirror and it smashes against the wall, silver shards tinkling to the hard floor. Tensing up, he waits for the rebuke from his father, but it never comes. Instead, his father only looks sad, and the boy wonders if he’s screwed up, if his actions will force him to watch his father break down and cry yet again.

But no.

His father shoulders a pack from the table and scoops the boy into his strong arms. The boy knows he’s too big to be carried, but he allows it, because despite how little he really knows about the man carrying him, his touch is still as familiar as the pungent smell of wet grass in the backyard after a rainstorm.

For this one time, his father carries him to the door in the fence, which is already open—strange—and down the path to the river. Hiding from a stiff wind, the boy nestles into his father’s chest, intuitively realizing something his brain has yet to comprehend.

What is it? What am I missing?

When they reach the riverbank, his father sets him down, but the boy clings to his father’s waist, like he used to do when he was three years old and afraid of everything. The drone of the food-maker. The shadows in his bedroom closet. The kites soaring over their backyard.

And now, for some reason that’s beyond his understanding, he’s afraid of the Mississippi, his once enemy, now an old friend.

His father lets him cling to him while he fiddles with the straps on the backpack. The boy stares up at him, his father’s head haloed by a sea of stars, and watches as he removes two long, webbed shoes strapped to the pack. He drops them on the ground and says, “Step in.” The boy complies, placing one foot at a time into the gaping holes in the strange shoes. They remind him of duck’s feet, only a whole lot bigger. They fit perfectly, although he has to wriggle his feet back and forth to get them to slide inside. “Good,” his father says. “These will make you swim faster, as if you have fins like a fish.” The boy lifts each foot, wondering how something so clunky will help him in the water.

Next his father unzips a pouch and extracts a large plastic bag, which he wraps around the backpack, sealing it inside. Using a length of rope, he ties it around the boy’s waist. It feels heavy, weighing him down, like how the boy imagined Zoran felt when wicked King Bernard locked him up in the dungeon with a ball and chain tethered to his ankle.

If his father expects him to swim like this, wearing a hot, itchy second skin, clunky shoes, and dragging a heavy load, he’s going to be sorely disappointed. Not to mention the bugs crawling around in his head.

“I love you, Son,” his father says, hugging him fiercely, smashing the boy’s face into his stomach.