Whispers in Autumn (18 page)

My stomach jumps at the prospect. “Well?”

“I don’t know if it will work.” Lucas glances up and down the street, making sure no eavesdroppers lurk nearby. The little girl who lives three houses down skips toward her house, but no one else is around. “What time does Mr. Morgan go to bed?”

“Ten-thirty.”

“Okay. Go out on your back porch after the Wardens’ eleven o’clock patrol.”

We’ve paused in front of Lucas’s house—or the Crawfords’ house, as I now think of it. It’s no more his than the Morgans’ is mine. We have one minute left. “Why?”

“You’ll see.” Lucas wraps his arms around my waist in a brief, tight hug, then runs up the walk and disappears.

An ache settles inside my chest as a fierce gust of wind whips my ponytail across my face. Eleven o’clock is a lifetime away.

Inside the Morgans’, life has settled into a new routine. Mr. Morgan doesn’t act unhappy, but he doesn’t act the same as before either. For all the resentment of my travels, my multiple families, and the fact that none of them seem to notice my absence, I miss Mrs. Morgan. The house is deflated, somehow less bright, as though she breathed life and light into it with her presence.

This evening Mr. Morgan waits for me in the living room. Completing my homework fills the time until he calls me for dinner. The kitchen table used to feel small. Now, with just him, me, and plates filled with sandwiches and raw vegetables, the kitchen engulfs us. Dinner, like all our meals, is silent without Mrs. Morgan’s patter.

Even though Mr. Morgan asks about my day, tells me about his, and smiles contentedly, he doesn’t seem happy. I don’t usually watch television with him except on Saturdays, when family movie time is required, but tonight his bruised smile urges me to join my makeshift father on the couch.

The only programs on television are the news twice a day, and a movie at night. There are seven movies, one for each day of the week. They’re all silly and lack an actual point. Sometimes they’re about Partners laughing, enjoying an Outing, or they’re simply funny, about people falling down or running into walls. The Others play the part of benevolent benefactors, delivering meals and graciously patching up the clumsy humans. Mr. Morgan laughs at the pictures. I don’t find them particularly funny, but make sure to chuckle at the appropriate moments.

As I watch, my brain wrestles with other matters. How to broach the subject of being Other to Lucas if we are able to talk later. How to survive the interviews without being discovered.

Why Ko thinks humanity is in danger, or that Lucas and I can somehow save them if they really are.

Nine-thirty rolls around, finally. Mr. Morgan turns on the news and I escape to the welcome solitude of the bedroom. At ten the television clicks off and he walks to the bottom of the stairs, yelling up at me “Good night, Thea.”

“‘Night, Dad.”

He shuffles into the bedroom that’s now just his and closes the door with a soft
click
. I change into thick sweatpants and a sweatshirt, then flick off my bedroom light. The window seat offers a clear view of the street and I curl up among the pillows to wait. A Warden passes at ten thirty, the streetlight reflecting off his polished black shoes. He gives each house a cursory glance; all the lights are extinguished.

Lucas needs to know about the night Mrs. Morgan lost her mind. The revelation that the Others have brainwashed everyone but us strikes me as equal parts insane and obvious, now that I know. I’ve thought about that night in such detail so many times, but the idea will be new to Lucas.

My story organizes itself in my mind, orders the details of that night. The worst night of my life. The way Elij changed Mr. Morgan’s and the Healer’s memories. The breezy presence in my head as he looked into my eyes. The way Deshi seemed to cause the young Other pain by looking at him. It seems to indicate they’re able to enter one another’s minds as well.

My theory leaves me with two horrible questions. First, what happened to Mrs. Morgan at dinner? If the Others brainwash humans to keep them happy and content, why did it stop working on her? Second, I’m not mind controlled and neither is Lucas, but why? The obvious answer is that’s what makes us Dissidents. It’s why we experience bad feelings, and really good ones too. It doesn’t explain the fact that I can melt stuff with a finger, but one thing at a time.

It’s strange. I’ve grown up knowing I’m different but never truly considered I might be Other.

A different Warden passes under the lamppost. Eleven o’clock.

When he turns the corner I grab a blanket off my bed and sneak down the stairs. I hold my breath at the tiny sound the door makes when it clicks open, and step out onto the back porch. At first I see nothing, and disappointment clogs my heart.

A paper cup with a thin string trailing out the bottom catches my eye, mostly because trash is rarely lying around. There’s a slip of paper trapped by the rocks filling the bottom of the cup.

You’re going to think this is so nuts, unless it works. I think I used to play with one of these when I was little. Dump out the rocks, pull the string tight, and put the open end to your ear
.

It’s not addressed to me or signed. Lucas wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave our names out for anyone to stumble across. It does sound crazy, but we’ve got nothing to lose, so instead of wasting time questioning him I dump out the rocks and follow his instructions. I jump as the cup vibrates in my hand and Lucas’s voice comes through.

“Can you hear me, Althea?”

I take the cup from my ear and press it around my lips. “Yes.”

“Wow, it works. I thought I dreamed it.”

“Do you have weird dreams sometimes that feel more like memories?”

“Yes. I think they are memories of my real family. They call me
fils
, and it makes me happy. I named the fish because of that.”

The cup is still in my hand for several seconds. Now that we’re talking, a shy nervousness grips me. We only have about twenty minutes until the next patrol.

“Tell me where you spend your seasons,” he asks.

It’s an easy question, one with a simple answer. “In the winter I stay with the Clarks in Iowa. And the spring, Portland with the Hammonds.”

“What about your summers?” He asks the question casually, but there’s a reason, I know there is.

I have a theory on this, and am happy to have the chance to test it. “It’s never summer.”

“What do you mean it’s never summer?”

“I think you know very well what I mean. I bet in your world it’s never winter.”

“You’re right. Spring here. Summer in Georgia. Used to spend my autumns in Portland.” Stunned intrigue fights with awe in his voice.

Understanding dawns like a new day, inevitable and bright. “That’s why you’re always cold and I’m always hot. I mean, it doesn’t explain anything, but it sort of makes sense.” Another question, buoyed by Ko’s necklace message, niggles at me. “So what do you think brought us together here, now? What changed?”

Silence stretches between us. Something
has
changed. I felt it even before the Wardens appeared at our Outing, announced they were observing us, and began to ferry Terminal students away. It’s as though someone, somewhere has kept us apart for sixteen years. The whole situation is so carefully orchestrated, the way we go to the same places but never meet. The giant hand behind the mystery of our lives, invisible until now, seems as plain as the nose on my face.

Whose hand, or what’s hand, remains to be seen.

The cup startles me when it jumps with Lucas’s response. “Something. The only way we’re going to find out what is by hearing what they’re asking in those interviews.”

I nod, then remember he can’t see me. “Yes. We have to know what they’re looking for before we try to fool them into thinking we’re not it.” The cup lays flat against my ear for a while, and when I’m sure Lucas isn’t going to respond, I hold it around my lips, doubt pressing against my heart. “Lucas, how are we going to fight the Others? It’s ludicrous. We have nothing to fight them with.”

“There must be a way, Althea. We’re different. We just have to figure out what it is.”

CHAPTER 18.

Early the next week, we get the chance to spend the hour after Cell alone. In a disturbing and strange development, Deshi and Leah have begun courting. I didn’t want to believe it when he put his arm around her at Cell, but Leah told us at lunch that their Parental Sanction is this evening. They’ll be tied up until after dinner. Perfect.

Lucas brought me his note from Ko, which I asked to see because it’s not in a necklace at all. It’s written on some paper tucked in a funny plastic case, and I shove it into my backpack for later examination. The afternoon is windy and cold; strands of my hair keep sticking on my lips. Sitting outside is uncomfortable now as the weather turns colder, more bitter, every day. Autumn is on its way out, winter biting its heels like a rabid dog.

We’re allowed to be in the park, but the cameras on the boundary and in the occasional tree still make me nervous. Lucas picked a good spot, hidden both from the fence and eyeball-harboring trees, but the Wardens are out there. We sit close together on our spread-out jackets and mutter in low voices.

“We have to figure out what makes us different and how to use it to fight them.” Lucas waits for my reply, propped against the trunk of an elm tree.

Anger simmers at the mention of the Others, the need to expose them for what they are lighting a dormant fire. I scoot closer and pick up his hand. “It’s not like the ways we’re unusual are threatening. I mean, we aren’t always happy, we question the authority and goodness of the Others, and no one seems truly comfortable around us.”

We are also both shadows. But not to each other.

“And we smell weird, let’s not forget that. Oh, and we can heat up or cool down a room like nobody’s business.” Lucas grins, turning my stomach inside out.

Silence stretches for several seconds while my thoughts rearrange into coherence. Taking deep breaths steadies me a bit. I make a mental note to avoid looking at his smile if I intend to utter intelligible language afterward.

The tweeting and rustling of the birds outside the boundary permeate the afternoon. The pleasant strains soak in through my ears and spread through me leaving longing in their wake. As I watch, one of the pretty blue ones flies too close to the boundary. There’s a loud zap and vibrant feathers waft to the ground.

“Also, they can’t control our minds,” I whisper.

His head jerks up, confused eyes searching my face. “What are you talking about?”

“Lucas, I have to tell you something about the night Mrs. Morgan disappeared.”

He sits up straight. “Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. How weird was it having Wardens in the house, watching you? I don’t know how you did it.”

“Things were crazy. Between all of the kids disappearing, your lies about the Administrator’s office, and Deshi’s asking me to the mixer, my nerves were wound pretty tight.”

“Deshi asked you to the mixer?” Lucas’s features pinch together, and his voice sounds strange, tight.

“Yes, but that’s not the point. A few days later I got home in a bad mood and Mrs. Morgan brought up the Wardens taking a baby next door. All those emotions and anger festering inside me—when they mentioned the neighbor’s baby Breaking with such flippant attitudes, I lost it.”

“What do you mean, you lost it? Like sweated them out?”

At first, his joking tone irritates me. How can he think of teasing at a time like this? Then again, his ability to lighten my often too-serious demeanor is one of the things I like most about him.

I
like
him.

The thought stalls my story for a minute, causing Lucas to think he’s annoyed me with the interruption.

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“It’s okay. It did get pretty hot in there. I boiled some water. And burnt the custard. Anyway, lost it as in I stood up at the table and yelled at them. About not caring about the baby, mostly, but also why they don’t care when I leave. I shut up pretty fast—I realized my behavior was not Acceptable—but I couldn’t switch my mind off. Mr. Morgan didn’t think anything about it, just sat there chomping on his duck. Mrs. Morgan, though…when I looked at her eyes I could tell she saw me. Like
saw
me.”

“You mean she didn’t just accept that you belong there?”

“Exactly. She was scared about it, too. She shook all over, pointed at me and asked Mr. Morgan who I was and where I’d come from. She backed up and grabbed the doorknob like she was going to run away.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried calming her down, so did Mr. Morgan. Nothing worked. When I went up to her, she shrank away, scared to death of me. She asked me what I am. I had to do something. I couldn’t let her run all over town talking about me not being her daughter, not being like everyone else. So I pushed her and she banged her head on the door and passed out.”

“You
what
?”

I shrug to hide how appalling my own actions seem to me and finish the story, including the appearance of Deshi and the talk about shedding veils.