Whispers in Autumn (21 page)

At least Lucas has the good sense to look guilty, too. He bends over and presses his hands into his knees, breathing deep. I want to sit in the grass and let water leak from my eyes until it dries up. Autumn has spiraled out of control, my emotions tugging me one way and then another hard enough to cause an allover ache. Lucas straightens and grabs my hands, squishing my fingers together. The pain of his grip clears my mind, exchanges guilt for self-preservation. Without a word we stumble home, our feet on some kind of autopilot. We go slow, eating up more than half of our hour in silence.

The Crawfords’ house looms too soon, and I don’t want Lucas to go inside. I have the ridiculous notion he can keep me safe just by walking at my side. We settle on the Morgans’ front porch, my left hip pressed against his right.

“What are we going to do?” My voice shakes.

“We can’t do anything for Emmy and Reese, or anyone else. Not until we can figure out how to help ourselves. And we have to do that before the interviews.”

“I know.”

I rest my cheek on his shoulder. There are so many things about us we can’t erase or hide. We can’t change what we are. We don’t even
know
what we are.

Lucas remains silent for several minutes and transfers a nervous energy through his hand to mine. I raise my head, meet his eyes. A secret lurks in them, one that scares me.

“Althea, I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“Promise you aren’t going to think I’m a bad person.”

“Lucas, look at us. We’re the same. I could never in a million years think you’re a bad person.”

He doesn’t look convinced, the somber, serious expression on his face remaining in place. “It’s about the day I told you I overheard in the Administrative Center that the Wardens are here looking for something.”

“Oh, yeah! You never did tell me how you
really
heard that.” Suspicion clouds my mind, wondering if his reasons for keeping his secret could be sinister.

“I don’t know if I can explain it very well, but I’ll try. That day, I tried getting information from the girls at lunch, but they didn’t know a whole lot. More than I’d figured, but after that bizarre scene at the Family Outing and the realization that the Others were targeting our class, it wasn’t enough.” He runs a thumb over my knuckles and I forget to listen for a second. “I followed one of the Wardens. He went into the Administrator’s office but I couldn’t get in—you saw the cameras.”

He falls silent, staring down at our linked fingers.

“Then what happened?”

“I walked away and stayed out of sight until the doors opened again.” He pauses, free hand shaking as he runs it through his curls.

“So how did you know they were sent to find something if you didn’t overhear the conversation?” He’s taking an awful long time to tell this story, and impatience crisscrosses my words.

“It wasn’t a Warden who walked out of the office. It was Leah.”

“Leah? Black-haired, pissy Leah?”

Anticipation crackles along my nerves. His gaze darts to his watch and he pulls on one ear, a peculiar motion I haven’t seen him make until now. It occurs to me that I’ve never seen him this nervous. The feeling infects me and I chew on my fingers as he finds the courage to go on.

“Yeah. She walked around the corner and I just…grabbed her.” My mouth falls open, but he holds up a hand. “Let me get it all out. I wanted so badly to know why the Wardens were here. I thought maybe I could get her to tell me.”

“You asked her? What did she say?”

His eyes glaze over, staring past me like he’s seeing the whole thing over again. “Nothing, at first. She looked at me funny, then her eyes got wide and she said she was going to report me. Obviously, I couldn’t let her do that so I dragged her into an empty closet and shut the door.”

I suck a breath in through clenched teeth. Not just because of what he’s said but because it reminds me of that night in the kitchen, when Mrs. Morgan wanted to run out the door.

He pauses, meeting my eyes. “What?”

“Nothing. Go ahead.”

“She looked more scared than angry. I didn’t know how to convince her not to report me but my mind raced. I silently begged her to tell me what the Wardens said. I told her they aren’t the good guys, that the interviews scare the living daylights out of me. It was like I’d flipped a switch. She got more and more scared and she looked crazy. I asked her to tell me what happened in the office, and she did.”

“The bruises on her arms, you did that?” The shame on his face twists a knife in my heart. “What did she tell you?”

“Exactly what I told you in the park that day. That the Wardens are looking for something—she didn’t hear what—and they think they’ll find it by interviewing the Terms. After she spilled, her voice got soft, like a little girl’s, and she asked me what was going to happen to us. She asked me what I was.”

A gasp whistles through my lips. “That’s almost the same thing Mrs. Morgan said.”

“I was so scared. I had no idea what happened to her. And I couldn’t let her go and start blabbing all over Cell about me. So I tried something. I pushed opposite thoughts at her. That she never talked to me, never even saw me. A film drew over her eyes, until she looked through me again. When I let her go, she turned and went back to block.”

He stops, sitting back against the step. He pulls on his ear again, looking as though he’s making a decision. Finally, he sighs. “There’s more. The other day, after you suggested trying to find out about the interviews, I did it again.”

“
What
?”

“I know, it’s just that she’s the only person I can think of who might know where they’re conducting them, and I already screwed her up so what’s the difference?” Misery deepens his voice, makes it scratchy. “She said they’re conducting them in the Administrator’s office, so there’s no way we could listen in. And she either doesn’t know or wouldn’t tell me the questions.”

The entire story sinks in, and the fact that my idea to somehow prepare for the interviews is a bust is the least interesting tidbit of information. Lucas’s story mingles with what I learned the night Mrs. Morgan Broke, and pieces start to fall into place.

“You got around the Others’ control. That night they took me outside the boundary, they talked about refreshing Leah. One Other said she’d shed her veil, but Elij said it looked like it had holes in it. You did that.”

He looks up with caution, encouraged by the revelation in my voice. “After you told me what happened to Mrs. Morgan and what the Others said about her shedding her veil, it started to add up. You must have done the same thing to her.”

Realization pummels my brain and water springs into my eyes. Lucas’s fingers tighten around mine, his concern making everything harder.

“Lucas—” Emotions close off my throat, making it impossible to continue. After a minute I fight them off. “It’s not the same. I didn’t put Mrs. Morgan back together and now she’s dead.”

Panic, guilt, and shame wash through me with no way to escape. Instead, they bottle up until they ooze down my cheeks in fat, salty streams. Lucas scoots closer, but for the first time having him near offers little comfort.

“It’s not your fault, Althea. We didn’t know our thoughts could do that. When it happened, you didn’t even know about veils. Stop beating yourself up; I did it, too.”

“Stop beating myself up? I Broke someone, Lucas! She might have acted like a robot, but she was a good person and she didn’t deserve to die because I can’t control myself. And don’t even compare what I did to what you did. I was too stupid to realize I’d caused something I should have tried to fix. Leah’s still alive, remember?”

“Althea, if you want to blame someone, blame the Others. They’re the ones who put the veils up in the first place. And it’s not like I did a bang-up job fixing Leah. You see how she’s different. Aggressive. Angry. She’s courting Deshi, to top it all off.” Guilt laces his voice as it falters over the admission.

It’s true Leah’s different. Still, angry is better than Broken. The old, troublesome fear bends me forward over my legs for a minute. “We’re not human, Lucas. We’re Other. We must be.”

When I look up, Lucas’s beautiful, sorrow-filled eyes meet mine. He doesn’t argue. How can he? We can mess with human minds like only they can. I’ve never known the Others to melt or freeze objects, and they don’t smell odd, but humans certainly don’t either. If Deshi is like us, maybe he has the answers to our questions.

“What about Deshi? He’s so much like us, Lucas, but he spends time alone with the Others. I want to know what he knows. He could tell us everything about the interviews, or maybe convince the Others we don’t have what they’re looking for at all.”

“Althea, slow down. One thing at a time. If we’re Other, there’s nothing we can do to change it. But Deshi…I agree it makes sense that he’s another Dissident, and all the signs point toward that but I just don’t trust him. Not the way I trusted you.”

I shake my head, unwilling to totally give up on the idea. Lucas hugs me, right there in front of the Morgans’ house. It’s a good thing people think we’re courting. His arms are strong and wrap tightly around me. The length of our bodies mold together until we feel like one person instead of two. I bury my face in his shoulder, lace my fingers together behind his back. Warmth, a mixture of our body temperatures, flows between us. In spite of everything my spirit lifts, if only a little.

I might be Other, but I’m not alone. Not anymore.

He murmurs against my hair, his cool breath chilling my sweat. “We’ll figure out what to do about Deshi.”

Lucas pulls away and starts toward the Crawfords’. A ragged fissure gapes inside me, tearing wider with each step he takes. The last thing in the world I want is to be alone. Mrs. Morgan, Sarah, Emmy, Reese, Greg…all gone. I can’t help them, can’t save them.

“Lucas?”

He turns, sadness glinting in his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Will you come over later?” It’s not Acceptable, but after this afternoon, the thought of being alone until tomorrow morning makes my skin itch. If he’s caught sneaking over, there’s no telling what might happen. Then again, it’s not the worst infraction we’ve committed in the past several weeks. It’s not even the worst thing we’ve done today.

He doesn’t hesitate, his dimpled smile delighting me from twenty feet away. “Sure.”

The evening goes on forever, and when Mr. Morgan calls me into the living room right before the ten o’clock news I feel like it will never come to a close. He pats the couch beside him and I take a seat, shivering in soft brown pajama pants and matching camisole.

“What’s up?” I ask him.

He smiles, the quivery one. “I heard from the Other Archivist today. She’ll be in Danbury on Saturday morning to collect your mother’s family heirlooms.”

“Why? What’s an Archivist?”

“The Others store family histories, compiling information and photographs. They sent some information over the Interweb Network about protocol for when someone…for these situations. Would you mind meeting her for me?”

“But why isn’t she just coming here?” It doesn’t make sense that they would ask me to meet them in the park instead of coming into town. All of Mrs. Morgan’s things are here. The request plants a seed of suspicion in the back of my mind.

Mr. Morgan’s eyebrows scrunch together for a moment, his quizzical smile tugging at my heart. “Would you mind meeting her for me?”

He repeats the exact same question, as though my response was wrong and he’ll just keep asking until he gets the right one. I want to tell him no, but can’t summon the word. First of all, he’s my dad and he’s not really asking. Second, his smile still doesn’t reach his eyes. His shoulders slump and sadness rolls off him, and it’s my fault. I’d give him anything he asked for, even though nothing can bring her back.

“Sure, Dad.”

He kisses my cheek and tugs on my ponytail before sending me to bed. An hour later sudden paranoia attacks, so I pad back downstairs in sock-clad feet to recheck the back door, even though we never lock them. I smack into something hard and bounce back, stifling a shriek. Lucas’s whispered voice calms me before terror takes root.

“It’s me. Sheesh. I said leave the door unlocked, not tackle me when I walk in. What are you doing down here?”

“Coming to check the door.”

We pass Mr. Morgan’s room on our way up the stairs. I hold my breath the whole time, wishing we could actually be invisible. Despite my worry, we make it to my moonlit bedroom without any trouble and I lock it behind us. Mr. Morgan never comes into my room, but now’s not the time to take chances.

Lucas smiles and looks me over. “Like your pajamas. Cute.” He swipes my nose with a finger, then crosses to the window seat, climbing onto my pile of pillows.

I pull the covers back and climb into bed, sitting cross-legged and trying not to stare. Despite the cold, Lucas walked over in mesh shorts and a white T-shirt, the hard outline of his muscles showing through the thin fabric.

“Tell me your best dream.” Lucas surprises me with an offhand, not-crucial-to-survival question. I know he means the ones filled with what I call shadow people, the dreams Lucas suggests are perhaps memories of what our lives might have been like before Ko wrote the notes, before we traveled.

“It’s weird.”

“That’s okay. I still want to hear it.”

I take a deep breath and blow it out, bringing the images to the front of my mind. I’ve hidden them in the back, in a safe place, so I can still take them out and remember. “I can never see very well, and even my best one is more impressions than solid pictures. But it’s warm, like the very end of spring or maybe what summer feels like. My arms and head float on top of water, hot from the sunshine. It’s cool down deeper and there are people, a man and a woman, laughing and splashing nearby. I’m kicking in the water and they pass me between them, helping me get from one to the other and kissing my cheeks when I reach one of them.” Warmth spills through me at the memory, as it always does, of that strange and foreign sensation of love shining around me like it never has in real life. To hide how much the dream means, I shrug. “I’ve never been in any water, obviously. But that’s it.”