For a second they are silent, merely looking at one another before Zoey says, “I know I don’t have to ask either of you what you want to do because you feel the same as I do. But there’s something to think about before we make a decision. This really is no longer their fight. They’ve taken us in, fed us, protected us, and now we’re asking them to put themselves in danger again. It isn’t fair, especially to Tia and Chelsea. They’d be hunted the same as us the moment someone saw them.”
The other women seem to digest this before Sherell says, “I don’t want them to have to go, but we need them if we’re going to get there.” She adjusts her dark hair behind her ear. “It’s funny. I shouldn’t care about people I’ve never really known before. I don’t remember my parents at all. Can’t bring up their faces or the sound of their voices, nothing. By all rights they’re probably dead, but . . .” She shrugs. “I can’t get away from that feeling. That need to know. It’s there every day like a bruise that doesn’t heal.”
The room grows quiet again except for the slight hiss of wind that sneaks into and out of the rooms through the cracks in the walls. There is so much work to do here. There is life in this place. Potential. They could stay here, forget the past completely and forge ahead.
Always remember you already have a family you’ll never have to go looking for
.
But Sherell’s words are still there, hovering in Zoey’s mind like a fog.
“My mother has a scar over her right eyebrow,” Rita says, jolting Zoey from her thoughts. Rita stares at the floor between her feet. “I remember touching it once, tracing the line. It was like an L laid on its side. I asked her where she’d gotten it and she told me to be quiet. I think maybe my father had hit her. She wasn’t pretty. She had big hands and a wide forehead like mine. But I thought she was beautiful and that the scar only added to it.” Rita looks up and Zoey is surprised to see a shine to her eyes. “I think that’s maybe why I was so angry all the time before. Because I envied everyone who couldn’t remember anything. If you’ve never had it, how can you miss it, right?” She looks down at her hands. “Halie and Grace were like that. No memories of where they came from, so they were in no hurry for their induction. I’m not sure if they even minded being at the ARC. Halie asked me to walk around the promenade with her one day, a year before her ceremony, and I spit on her. She was just trying to be nice, but I was so angry at everyone because each day that passed was a day I couldn’t get back to the only person I knew who truly loved me.” She wipes at her nose and blinks rapidly. “I’m going no matter what.”
Zoey feels the ghostly slide of soft hair through her fingers, the only memory she has, and the ache is there.
The bruise that never heals.
“We’ll leave in two days,” she says.
3
I am a comet
,
Wen thinks.
She sits up in her cot, early morning air creeping in through the broken zipper of the tent. More than cool, it is cold.
Always moving, never stopping.
She hears the sounds of the trade breaking down. The rev of an engine, tent poles rattling, men cussing at one another, at everything, at nothing. She’s never gotten used to how early they leave. It isn’t yet dawn.
She rises and pulls on her dusty cargo pants and stained blouse, fingering the tear near the collar. A man grabbed her as she was moving between two of the game stands last night, even though it’s expressly forbidden to touch her. Before she could stick the sharpened crochet hook she typically carries into his stomach, he’d torn her only decent blouse. She’d left him lying and moaning in a spreading pool of blood while the fluting calliope music played obscenely on the midway. And she hadn’t cried this time after closing her tent for the night.
She undoes the tent’s flaps and peers outside.
The flatness of the Nevada desert is still startling to her even after seeing it dozens of times on the trade’s routes. The scrub that stretches for miles is a muted purple, glimmering with frost, in the predawn light. The dry, packed dirt, cracked and veined beneath the low brush, fades into obscurity outside the borders of the town they camped near. To the west is the smudge of the Sierra Nevadas, their grandeur struck down by distance.
She sees this all past the jutting outlines of the carnival tents and fifteen-foot chain-link fence that acts as the trade’s border. Even now the fence sags as it’s deconstructed, poles being pulled by the dark shapes of men, a hauling truck trundling before them.
Wen breathes the air, the cold burning her lungs. They’ll want their food soon. There isn’t much time.
She dons her heaviest coat and heads toward one of the few buildings that is solid wood, instead of fraying canvas, keeping the image of a comet in her mind. The trade only pauses, never stops for good, and she is no different. What was the book she read in school? The one with the two boys who go to the carnival that arrives in the middle of the night? She can’t recall the name but it was eerie and haunting, as were the forces that ran the carnival itself. That parallel isn’t lost on her.
She passes a dozen men, all armed and huddled around a pot of coffee steaming over a fire. They give her looks but don’t say anything. They’ve learned how far they can go and where exactly the lines are. It’s the only thing she’s grateful for in this place.
The mess building sits in the northern part of the camp near the fence line. To the right is the coliseum, a construction of wooden bleachers that circles what most of the men refer to as “the dance floor.” The smell of blood is strong even outside the structure, but her gorge has ceased to react to the scent.
Desensitization
, she thinks the word is. Too much of anything causes it to lose its meaning.
Beyond the coliseum is the square shape of the nest, two stories, its upper windows lit no matter what time of day or night. A generator hums beside the building and a dozen guards stand near its base, talking quietly, several embers of hand-rolled cigarettes flaring in the gloom.
Wen walks through the open front of the mess area, its rows of seating empty at this hour. In the back she passes through a flimsy door and leaves the serving window’s awning shut.
Two fluorescent tubes buzz to life in the ceiling when she flips a switch, and by their glow she begins to work.
She loses herself in the preparation of food. Lighting the stove, pans warming, oil out on the counter, refrigerator open, ingredients gathered. She does this without thinking, only moving, always moving. She’s about to stir everything together when the kitchen door flies open and bangs against the wall.
Vidri stands in the doorway, his hunched, muscular shoulders giving away his identity even though she can’t see his face. And even if she couldn’t see him at all, she would be able to smell him. His body odor is the worst she’s ever encountered, and that’s saying something since showers and baths are rotated biweekly.
“Morning, sunshine,” Vidri says. He motions with his head and an unfamiliar figure appears beside him, much thinner. “Tristan, this is Wen. She cooks and makes the sweets.”
Tristan stares, dissecting her from across the kitchen. “Where’d she get a name like Wen? She don’t look Chinese.”
“It’s short for wench,” Vidri says, stepping through the door. Tristan follows behind him. When he stops beneath the fluorescent light she sees he’s been drinking already. Without a word she turns to the fridge and retrieves a covered container, spooning a dollop of chocolate pudding into a bowl before sliding it to Vidri. He doesn’t look at the dessert but continues to stare at her.
“It’s more than last time,” Wen says. “It’s as much as I can spare without someone noticing.”
Vidri places a dirty index finger into the chocolate and dips some out. He looks at it for a moment and licks the chocolate away before sauntering around the counter.
“Here, let me thank you,” he says.
Wen shakes her head. “No.”
“Come on, it’s rude not to say thanks.” He corners her and she leans away, the cabinet behind her pressing into her back. Vidri moves closer, his odor overpowering. It coats the back of her throat and nasal passages. If she weren’t so used to it she would vomit all over him.
Vidri leans in and presses his mouth against hers. The touch of his lips along with his stench makes her want to shudder.
Vidri’s lips part as he pushes his tongue against her teeth. After what seems like hours he steps back. “That’s my love,” he whispers. “You know I’ve been talking to them about us. Think I’m wearing them down. Soon I’ll get permission and you’ll stay in my tent at night.” He brushes her cheek with one finger, rubbing it against her lower lip. The urge to bite him is almost too much. She can imagine the satisfaction of her teeth coming together, skin parting, bone cracking, Vidri screaming and dropping to his knees.
He withdraws his finger, looking at it before putting it in his mouth, sucking on it obscenely.
Without another word he turns and moves past the counter, grabbing the little bowl and spoon as Tristan follows. Vidri throws a last wink over his shoulder before they exit the kitchen, letting the door bang shut behind them.
Tears start to come to her eyes as she turns toward the sink, but she blinks them away, bending over before turning on the tap and filling her mouth with cold water. She swishes it around, spits, and does it again and again until she can’t taste Vidri anymore.
Wen sets about heating a smaller pan on the stove, opening a window as she does to let the desert air usher out Vidri’s smell. In less than ten minutes she has the two egg-white omelets made, just the right amount of cheese dripping out of the side, a garnishing of chives on the top of each one.
A little trill of fear goes through her as she resumes stirring the contents of a bowl she’d been working on when Vidri had interrupted her. This isn’t even the dangerous part. If she were caught now there would be some excuses she could offer. If she were caught after this there are none. Even being a woman she might be brought to the guillotine at high noon wherever they stopped, forced to kneel before the entire trade, and the last sound she’d hear would be the rasping slide of death as the weighted blade fell toward the back of her neck.
The thought nauseates her but she’s nearly beyond caring now. So many years passed, so many opportunities missed, and the one person who keeps her moving is probably decaying in the ground somewhere.
Wen stops herself. No more of that. She shouldn’t have even gone down that lane of thinking. Just move, keep moving. Here and now, as Robbie always says, there’s nothing else.
The fried cakes come out of the pan a golden brown, their scent making her stomach growl. With deft strokes of her largest knife she cuts them into sections, doing the math in her head. Five for the men’s container, three for the women’s. She wraps the two piles of cakes in pieces of worn cloth and tucks in her blouse, making it poof out around her waist a bit, before sliding the two bundles holding the cakes through a gap between the buttons. The warmth hasn’t fully left the cakes and it seeps onto the skin of her stomach. After making sure the bulge doesn’t look strange or obvious, she covers the omelets, sets the plates on a serving tray, and leaves the kitchen.
Outside the sun brightens the eastern horizon and the sound of work has increased. Wen glances both ways before scooting across the gap between the kitchen and the towering coliseum. A man passes her carrying a bundle of rope but he doesn’t even pause to look at her. She’s become a fixture of everyday life for most of them. Something to gawk at but never touch. Except for Vidri. He’s getting bolder.
She spits on the ground thinking of the taste of his mouth again. Ahead, the midway is coming apart at the mercy of deft hands who’ve done this hundreds and hundreds of times. The stands decay in steady progress as more and more men appear to help deconstruct. Wen waits until she’s sure no one is looking in her direction and flits to the far side of the wide alley, slinking behind one of the sideshow tents.
Ahead are the two shipping containers, their oblong shapes mere shadows in the early light. At their fronts three guards lean against the steel, talking. Their weapons are slung low from straps around their shoulders. Cigarette smoke drifts to her and she remembers another life where she puffed ten or more of the cancer sticks down to their filters every day. She shakes herself free of the past and moves.
Across the gap between the tent and the first container. She strides quickly and evenly, making sure not to trip. The silverware rattles on the tray and she watches the guards but they are deep in conversation. Moving day is always exciting, and it’s the only day she can pass everyone relatively unseen.
The hole in the rear of the first container is round and about the size of a large man’s fist. Wen pauses only a second, expertly drawing out the first cloth of cakes. She reaches up and dumps the cakes free through the hole. They don’t hit the floor on the other side.
“Thank you,” a whispered voice says, but she’s already walking away, crossing to the women’s container. The hole there is lower and she repeats the process. The women aren’t ready and Wen hears the cakes strike the floor with dull thumps. She waits only a moment, listening, silently praying for movement.
After a teetering second she hears it.
A short scuffling sound and a muttered word she can’t make out. It’s enough.
She walks away from the back of the container, holding the tray with both hands now, the two cloths tucked away in her pants pocket.
4
When she reaches the nest, the guards look her over.
She had to retrace her steps to appear like she was coming from the mess building. She hopes the omelets haven’t grown too cold.
The guard closest to the door approaches her, smiling as she stops before him. He pats her down, his hands lingering near her groin and on her chest, his breath smelling of smoke. She bears it without a word. They take turns frisking her, even gamble for the chance to do it more than once a rotation.
When he steps away and opens the door for her, she walks through it holding the tray near her stomach, head high. Before her the narrow stairway rises to the second floor while to the right the first level stretches out in a sprawl of chairs, couches, and a long mahogany bar that will be disassembled within the hour. Wen stops at the top landing. Another guard waits at the doorway to the second floor. He knocks once on the hardwood behind him and a muffled reply comes from within. Stepping aside, he opens the door, letting her pass.
Even though she’s been in the upstairs room countless times, it never ceases to surprise her when compared to the bland surroundings.
The walls are a comfortable beige, but most of them are hidden behind lavishly draped bolts of red velvet suspended from the high ceiling. Portraits hang from the three windowless walls, their abstract subjects always looking like something different to her. The floor is polished tile the color of desert soil. A pool table with bright purple felt rests before the two windows that look out over the camp, and a ring of overstuffed leather chairs surrounds a small bar of polished wood. At the rear of the room a doorway leads to the bedroom. Not that she’s ever been inside it, only seen glimpses of it as they pass into and out of it. And as she watches, the door opens.
Elliot and Sasha Preston stroll into the main room like royalty.
Elliot comes first, his strange, sweeping saunter eerie in a way that nearly raises goose bumps on Wen’s flesh even after all these years. The ringmaster’s brown eyes find her and move on almost at once. His gray hair is almost white and has been trimmed since the night before, the precise edge of his crew cut sharp and defined. He wears, as always, a loose, long-sleeved shirt that billows around him, concealing the small pistol strapped to his right forearm. She once saw Elliot shoot a man in the throat who had been caught hoarding food. He’d simply brought up his arm and a gun had been in his hand, like magic. She supposes that’s why he likes the contraption so much.
Sasha glides behind him in a white, full-length gown complete with satin collars and cuffs as well as sparkling stones Wen knows are real diamonds. Her blond hair, piled high on top of her head, doesn’t have so much as a hint of gray. The cruel lines of her face jut against taut skin, plastic surgery from years before that looks demonic now without the proper upkeep.
“Good morning,” Wen says after Sasha shuts the bedroom door tightly.
“Good morning to you, dear,” Elliot says, coming forward. “I believe you’re several minutes late.”
“Apologies. The stove heated slower than usual this morning.” Elliot seems to accept this but Sasha continues to stare holes through her, the wall beyond, the world. Wen walks to the table between two of the largest chairs and sets the tray down. With a flourish, she draws the covers off the plates and the delicious smell of herbs fills the room.
“I never get tired of that,” Elliot says, smiling. It is a showman’s grin full of trickery and, at the same time, contempt. A snake’s smile. His teeth are gray behind pallid lips. He motions to the tray and Wen bends forward, picking up an extra fork.
She cuts a small piece of one omelet off before doing the same to the other. She stabs both pieces and places them in her mouth, chewing quietly and swallowing.
“Very good, dear. Now step over by Hemming if you will.”
Wen’s head snaps around in spite of herself. The albino is so thin and wiry, she’s sure if he stepped into the sun it would shine through him. Hemming smiles, the white skin of his face crinkling like crumpled paper, bald head polished and smooth. He wears a black T-shirt, black jeans, and shining black boots, the whole ensemble clashing marvelously with his pigmentless skin. What unnerves her the most is how he can move without being seen or heard. She’s sure she was alone when she entered the room.
Wen steps to the bodyguard’s right and stops near the wall. She can smell Hemming, a faint metallic odor, like an unfired gun. The Prestons seat themselves at the table but don’t touch the food.
“Moving day. Always so much to do,” Elliot says. “I assume you have something prepared to eat on the road today?”
“Leftover stew from last night. It’ll be cold though,” Wen says.
“Of course, of course. Just as long as you keep the troops fed, that’s all I ask.” He glances out one of the windows, fingering a button on the front of his shirt. “Has the supply run returned yet?”
“No. Not that I know of.”
“Hmm.” Elliot pauses before looking at her once again. “I need to speak to you about Vidri.” Wen’s jaw clenches. “He’s been requesting your quarters be moved to his tent for some time now. I told him that you weren’t part of . . . the other group, that your job is indispensable. In fact, in all my years with the different troupes, I’d have to say food was one of the most important aspects. A deal breaker so to speak. Starve a man’s stomach and it feeds his anger. Regardless, Vidri’s been quite persistent. What do you think of him?”
“I try not to.” She thinks she sees a flicker of amusement in Sasha’s eyes.
“You don’t approve of his leadership of the guards?” Elliot says.
“It doesn’t matter what I approve or disapprove of.”
“Now that’s not true. We value your opinion.” Wen nearly sneers but holds it at bay. Says nothing. “Vidri has been honorable and one of our most trusted men for a long time. There could be worse vying for your attention.”
Elliot waits for her to respond before frowning at her silence. “You’re stubborn, you know. Sometimes you remind me so much of Sondra it’s—” He stops, glancing at his wife as she stiffens in her seat. “I’m sorry, dear . . .”
“I think sufficient time has passed,” Sasha says tonelessly. “I’m hungry.” She draws herself closer to the table and begins to eat. Elliot appears about to say something more but stops and picks up his own fork.
And just like that Wen knows she’s been dismissed. She turns from Hemming, who hasn’t taken his eyes from her since she spotted him, and moves out the door, past the guard, and down the stairs, all the while continuing to count in her mind. She reaches three hundred as she walks away from the nest toward the mess building.
Five minutes since she took a bite of their food. Tested it for them.
The wait is getting less.
In the mess building Wen revels in the warmth of the kitchen. She would die for a cup of coffee right now. Real coffee. Not the instant shit she serves the men. Not the dried beans that are so stale they’ve nearly lost all flavor. A cup of freshly roasted and ground beans. Her mouth waters and when she closes her eyes she remembers the little apartment on the third floor overlooking Sandford Street. The light in the afternoon good, warm and gentle. She smells the candle that she used to burn no matter the time of year. Pumpkin spice. She’d cleaned the store out of them, had kept them in the pantry on the top shelf. She lets the memory consume her and feels the rough wood of her old kitchen table and then the rounded curve of her belly.
The door to the mess area creaks open and her eyes flash wide.
Robbie stands there, hunched and thin, in a jacket that’s a size too big for him. He is hollow-eyed and pale.
“I’d absolutely murder someone for a cup of coffee,” he says. Wen can’t help it. She laughs. So strange their connection for they couldn’t be more different.
“I was just thinking the same thing. Except I’d die for one,” she says.
Robbie’s face constricts. “I’d rather kill someone else.”
She moves to him and they embrace. He smells of the open road, windswept fields and dirt. “So glad you’re back,” she says before releasing him.
“Me too.”
“Take a cup of instant?”
“If I have to.”
She goes about making their drinks, holding back the question so he won’t think that’s the only reason she’s happy to see him. But when she sets the steaming mug of dark liquid before him, he’s already shaking his head, reading her mind.
“Didn’t find any.”
Her heart sinks. “Really? None? You were gone for two days. I thought . . .”
“Some d-Con, but you said not to get that.”
“No. It won’t work.”
He sips his coffee and grimaces. “Boiled ass.”
“You know what that tastes like?”
He flips her the middle finger casually while taking another drink, their banter like a comfortable blanket. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find any,” he says, his tone more sober. “We only passed by one farm that I was able to convince Darner to stop at, and then it took Fitz and me the better part of twenty minutes to separate ourselves from the rest of the party.”
“Do you think Fitz suspects anything?”
“He knows we’re going to leave here soon.”
“And he’s ready?”
“He’s terrified,” Robbie says, shooting her a look. “Just like I am.”
“It will work.”
“You always say that, but you’ve never told me why it has to be ten-eighty. Why that specific type?”
Wen sighs, looking down at her hands. She waits for them to shake but they don’t. “My father grew up on a sheep ranch in southern Idaho. When he was a boy he had a dog named Dusty. He told me he named him that because when he was just a puppy he would run so fast down their dirt road that he’d nearly disappear in the cloud of dust that flew up behind him. Coyotes and wolves were a problem back then and there was no way for the farmers to keep watch over all of the flock, especially on a ranch the size that he lived on, so my grandfather took to poisoning the carcasses of rabbits he shot. He’d leave them around the perimeter of the fences and most of the time there’d be a dead coyote or wolf lying not far away the day after.” Wen stands and moves to the sink, dumping the last half of her coffee down the drain. She doesn’t turn around, only stares at the wall. “My father said he was always really mindful of where Dusty roamed. Wherever he went, the dog followed and vice versa. But one day Dusty caught wind of something and didn’t turn back when my dad called him.”
“Ah shit,” Robbie says.
“He found him chewing the last of a rabbit down on the far side of their property. It didn’t take long. Right away Dusty started snapping and biting at the air. Then he ran in circles as fast as he could, but the worst thing, my dad told me, was the sound he kept making. It was a cross between a howl and a moan, and Dusty made it until he collapsed and quit breathing an hour later.”
Wen turns and looks at Robbie whose face is even more bloodless than before. “He told me he’d never forget the numbers on the side of the jugs he helped his father empty into a hole later that day. Ten-eighty. He said he saw those numbers in his dreams for nearly a year after Dusty died.”
“Damn, you really know how to welcome someone home. Why the fuck would your dad tell you that?”
Wen shrugs. “He was a drinker. Not sure he even remembered telling me afterward. When he’d get really liquored up he’d try to imitate how Dusty sounded before he died.” Robbie shifts on his seat, fidgets with his cup. When he doesn’t look up at her she moves closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“No. Not really. See, you . . . you could run and they’d just scoop you up and bring you back. Maybe put you in one of the containers for a night. But me? I know what would happen if everyone found out about me and Fitz.” He makes a chopping gesture toward the back of his neck. “Can’t have any queers running around in this brave new world.” He laughs humorlessly. “I was a contributor to an e-zine for two years before everything went to shit. Those were the happiest times of my life. And now look at me, sitting in a kitchen in the middle of a wasteland discussing poisons.”
Wen smiles sadly. “We’re going to be all right.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And we’re taking Fitz with us when we go.”
“Well we can’t very well leave him behind; he’s the damn gate guard, you know.”
“I know.”
“What if I would’ve fallen in love with a tightrope walker?”
“I would’ve gently steered you away. Performers are always heartbreakers.”
“Damn fine asses on those guys though.”
She shoves him and turns to the stove and the dishes lining the counter. “Let’s finish packing up. They’ll be tearing down soon.”
They work together without speaking, their movements those of practiced dance partners, never getting in the other’s way.
Always moving. Like a comet
,
she thinks, sealing off a huge container of flour.
But the question that sometimes keeps her awake at night is what happens when a comet collides with something?