Sometime in the dark of the night, I slide over to her. She is burning furiously hot now. I unsheathe a dagger from her belt. Epap awakens, jolts at the sight of the dagger. He looks at me, thinks I am about to do a mercy killing.
“Not yet,” he says. “She might still—”
“It’s not what you think,” I say. I place the dagger into my palm then slice; blood oozes out, pooling in my hand. The duskers are sent into a frenzy. I part Sissy’s lips and drip the blood from my hand into her mouth.
“In case it’s true. That I’m the Origin. That I’m the cure. Maybe it’s in my blood.”
But Epap is shaking his head, his eyes sad and withdrawn.
“It’s our last resort,” I say. “There’s nothing to lose.”
He can barely look at me as he speaks. “Gene,” he says, pointing at the gash on the side of my head. Where Ashley June had cut me. “You’re turning, too.”
He’s right. He’s seen what I have been denying, the paleness of my skin, the sweat glistening off my face, the fact that my shivering is not from the freezing wind, but from something deeper and sicker, the start of convulsions.
“You’re not the Origin,” he says, lying back down, closing his eyes. “You’re not the cure.”
* * *
Dawn arrives. The duskers fling themselves off the train, with reluctance, with anger, some of them swiping away one last time in hopes of catching someone off guard. Only a few remain; then, in a collective howl, they leap off, scampering into the dense woods. With the sheet of duskers gone, the wind blows unabated through the birdcage-like train car.
Only one dusker remains. But only because it has no choice. It had leapt headfirst at the train car, and its head had rammed right through between two bars. It could not extricate itself, not even after hours of pulling, not even after dislocating its shoulders and breaking its jawbone in five places.
Sunrise arrives, and our ears are filled with the cries of that dusker until, sufficiently melted and softened like butter, it drops off, a pus-filled sac that splats wetly on the tracks. The train runs over it; yellow fluid is spun around wheels and spit up like a spinning firecracker. Gooey drops splatter down on us like thick yellow rain.
But it is morning, at last, and the rays of the sun offer a reprieve from the terrors of the night. No one speaks; we still sit huddled together despite the warmth of the sun, despite the absence of duskers.
A pale girl lifts her face to the sun, her eyes squinting. There is shock written all over her body, in her clutched hands, her tightly curled legs. But there is also a glint of hope in her eyes, an anticipation of what lies ahead. The Civilization, the shine in her eyes seems to suggest, the Civilization. Her eyes flick to me, hold my gaze for a second or two. The bars of the cage cast slanted shadows across her face.
Perhaps I should tell her the truth. Everything Krugman told me. But even now, in my feverish state, I’m beginning to question that truth. Because something doesn’t quite add up. But I say nothing, only tear my eyes away from her, tuck my head down. The sunlight, like acid to my turning eyes. Its rays slip through the pores of my skin, into my bones, jangling harshly against nerve endings I never knew existed in my marrow. Epap is right. I’m turning. I shake. I shiver.
45
IN THE AFTERNOON, we open the boxes of supplies. There’s a lot of warm clothes we no longer need now that we’re entering warmer low-lying terrain. We find paper, stationery, medical supplies. And, to cries of relief, a chest filled with canned peaches. A baker’s dozen, to be exact, which coincidentally matches the number of us in the train car. For now. By nightfall, there might be two fewer. The freckled girl distributes the cans. After a moment’s consideration, she places one next to the still-unconscious Sissy. She warns us to consume it judiciously. Nobody knows for sure how long the trip will last. It might be several days.
Epap scribbles individual names on each can. A good way to learn new names, he says. He is trying to be brave, trying to be strong. He writes Sissy’s name on her can. He is refusing to acknowledge the undeniable: in a few hours he will have to do the unthinkable. First to her, then to me. He scribbles my name on a can, as if to make a point.
I stare at the cans of peaches, standing side by side. My name, Sissy’s name, scrawled in block letters. Like names on our tombstones.
* * *
Nighttime. I spasm awake, feeling the chill of the desert night clinging to my bones. Even the light of the moon has become an assault on my eyes. The turning is nearing completion. A cool breeze whistles through the train car, tinged with the scent of smoke. I sit up, glance up. A column of thick smoke rises from the lead car’s smokestack. The engine must have automatically kicked in after we’d lost our downhill momentum. It will stay at this speed, in all likelihood, all the way to the Palace, never slowing down. Everything automated.
Like my turning.
I shiver, my whole body racked with tremors. My heart racing, my shirt sticky with the cold condensation of sweat. The slowness of the turning, an agony all its own. Moonlight splashes through the cage; the shadows of the metal bars bend and curve across the topography of our bodies. Now and then, a girl cries out, lost in her nightmare. I sit up, feel the crackle of dried, crusty bone. David sleeps fitfully next to me, anguished words murmuring out of his lips. I pull the blanket over him. His arm is draped across the empty space on his other side. Where Jacob would be sleeping.
The land lumbers by, miles and miles of nothingness. Sissy lies at my feet, her head nestled in Epap’s lap. The daggers sheathed in her belt glint in the moonlight, beckoning me. My fingers touch the rough leather of her belt. I unhook the strap, draw a dagger out. It is time.
Epap will not do it. But I can. I must. First her, then me.
I place the dagger against her neck. The blade sinks into her soft flesh; I see the ripple of her pulse beating just above the blade.It is pulsing out with a slow steadiness, not rapid hammering. With a frown, I touch her skin.
It is dry. It is warm.
I place my hand over her heart. The heartbeat is steady and slow.
She’s not turning anymore. She’s unturning.
I stare at her calm, rested face, not understanding. A wind blows through the bars, and I shiver with the heated delirium of the turning.
“Sissy?”
Her eyelids flutter slightly. She is coming to. Her arm slips out from under the blanket, knocks against the peach cans by her head. Mine and hers, side by side.
I think I see something, and my heart, for reasons not immediately apparent, starts to hammer away even faster.
And then I hear something, the voice of my father, his voice startlingly clear even after so many years: You’re looking but not seeing. Sometimes the answer is right under your nose.
Sissy starts to stir awake. Her tongue laps out, dry and white, moistening her cracked lips. Her eyelids begin to open, not with the jittery flutter from earlier in the day, but with a sureness about it.
In a few moments, she will come to, sit up, look at me.
But not yet. My eyes fall on the cans again, standing side by side. At the letters scrawled, the names Epap had written on them.
Gene. Sissy.
But not quite. Because her name, with so many letters, is only partially visible. Just the first three letters are visible, the last two letters disappearing behind the curvature of the can.
Sis.
The name the Scientist christened her with.
And suddenly, I am thinking of the hang glider. It was always meant to be the two of you. I am thinking of Krugman, his insistence that the Origin was something typographical. Of Epap, saying my father always gave names for a specific reason. Of my blood, in her, conjoining with hers.
I keep staring at the names, and I am a blind man who suddenly gains sight.
Gene. Sis.
Gene. Sis.
Genesis.
She starts opening her eyes, eyes that I will never look at again in the same way.
Her eyes open, locking onto mine. She does not flinch, does not blink against the moonlight splashing down on her face. She will think my eyes widen because of gladness, because of surprise, on seeing her revive.
But they widen only because of realization; because of the truth that has been staring me in the face all this time. Right under my nose.
Genesis. The beginning.
The Origin.
Not me. Not her. But both of us.
Together, we are the cure.