UnSouled

After he’s settled in his bed, Lev closes his eyes. It’s getting late, but he can’t sleep. He can hear Una in the kitchen, cleaning up her burned dinner, tidying up so that she can pretend the messy apartment they saw tonight was just their imagination come morning.

Although Connor isn’t moving on his bedroll, it seems his head is far from sleep as well.

“Tonight at dinner was the first time I’ve said that word in almost two years,” Connor confesses.

It takes Lev a few seconds to recall the moment, which was much more traumatic for Connor than for him. He notes that Connor won’t even repeat the M word. “I’m sure Elina knows that and understands.”

Connor rolls over to face Lev, looking up at him from the floor in the dim light. “Why is it that it’s easier for me to deal with a sniper shot than to deal with what I said at the table tonight?”

“Because,” offers Lev, “you’re good in a crisis and you suck at normal.”

It makes Connor laugh. “ ‘Good in Crisis; Sucks at Normal.’ That about sums up my whole life, doesn’t it?” He’s silent for a moment, but Lev knows there’s more coming, and he knows exactly what it will be.

“Lev, do you ever—”

“No,” Lev says, shutting him down. “And neither should you. Not now, anyway.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“It’s the parent question, right?”

Connor stews a bit, then says, “You were annoying as a tithe, and you’re still annoying.”

Lev snickers and flips his hair back. It’s become a habit. Anytime someone reminds him of his days as a tithe, he takes comfort in that shock of long, unruly blond hair.

“I’m sure my parents know I’m alive now,” Connor says. “My brother must know too.”

That catches Lev’s attention. “I never even knew you had a brother.”

“His name is Lucas. He got the trophies, and I got detention slips. We used to fight all the time—but you must know all about that. You’ve got a whole busload of siblings, right?”

Lev shakes his head. “Not anymore. As far as I’m concerned, I’m now a family of one.”

“I think Una might see that differently, ‘little brother.’ ”

Lev has to admit there’s comfort in that, but not comfort enough. He decides to tell Connor something he’s yet to tell anyone—not even Miracolina during the many desperate days they spent together.

“When the clappers blew up my brother’s house, my father—who I hadn’t seen for over a year—disowned me.”

“That’s harsh,” says Connor. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. He basically said I should have blown myself up that day at Happy Jack.”

Connor offers no response to that. How could he? Yes, Connor’s parents sent him off to be unwound, but what Lev’s father did—that’s a whole other level of heartless.

“It hurt more than anything, but I survived and changed my name from Calder to Garrity, after Pastor Dan, who died when the house blew. I disowned my family right back. I suppose if the hurt ever comes back, I’ll deal with it, but I won’t go looking for it.”

Connor rolls away from him. “Yeah,” he says with a yawn. “Probably best if we don’t.”

• • •

Lev waits until Connor’s breathing is the steady and deep rasp of sleep; then he ventures out into the living room. Una sits in a comfortable chair with a cup of steaming tea—from the scent of it, one of Elina’s herbal elixirs. Una appears lost in thought as complex as the flavorful brew.

“Which one is it?” Lev asks.

She’s startled at first to hear his voice. “Oh—Elina calls it téce’ni hinentééni. ‘Night Recovery.’ Calms the soul and stomach. I think it’s mostly chamomile and ginseng.”

“Any left for me?”

She pours him a cup, and he lets the leaves steep, watching them rise and fall in the currents of the cooling liquid. Una sits across from him, content with silence. The only sound is Grace’s gentle snoring across the room. Usually Lev is at peace with silence as well, but what hangs in the air between them demands words.

“Do you think Pivane knows you’re the one who fired that shot through the window?”

Una makes no move of surprise at Lev’s suggestion. She just slowly sips her tea. “I’m insulted by your accusation, little brother,” she finally says.

“I’ve always respected you, Una,” Lev says. “Respect yourself enough not to lie.”

She glances at him—perhaps a dozen thoughts playing in her eyes before she puts down her cup and says: “Pivane knows. I’m sure he does. Why else would he have brought you here and make me promise to protect you?” She glances to the rifle beside her. “Which I will. Even if it’s myself that I’m protecting you from.”

“Why?” Lev asks. “Why did you do it?”

“Why?” Una mocks, beginning to lose her temper. “Why, why, and why! That’s always the question, isn’t it? I ask ‘why’ all the time, and the only answer I get are rustling leaves and the shrill chirps of mating birds.”

Lev says nothing. He can see that her eyes are moist, but she doesn’t allow tears to build.

“I did it because where you go, terrible things follow, Lev. The first time you came, the parts pirates came in your wake and took Wil. And now you bring the most wanted AWOL in the history of unwinding. I thought that shot would get the Tashi’nes to see reason and send you all on your way, but I suppose I got what I deserved.”

“You said you wanted me to stay.”

“I did and I didn’t. I do and I don’t. Today was a bad day. Today I wanted you and your friends gone.”

“And tonight?”

“Tonight I’m drinking tea.” And she goes back to sipping silently.

Lev can accept her ambivalence, although he can’t deny it hurts. Is she betraying him by wishing he would leave . . . or is he betraying her by being here at all? Una leans closer, and Lev finds himself leaning away to maintain the distance.

“You, little brother, are the harbinger of doom,” she tells him. “And I know, just as sure as we’re sitting here, that because of you, something much worse is coming.”

36 • Cam

Camus Comprix is amazed by the ability of music to change the world. Just a few simple chords. It is fuel more potent than uranium, and it powers his journey. It holds together fragments of memories like stars in a constellation. Connect the lines and you can see the whole image.

Now, as he moves through the dense pine forest, fifteen hundred miles away from the cushy town house in DC, he wonders what Roberta must be doing. Her favorite act of damage control, no doubt. He’s an AWOL Rewind now—something new under the sun. He wonders if the Juvenile Authority will be called in to aid in the search. He is a fugitive, just like the fugitives he seeks. It’s both frightening and empowering at once.

If he’s right and Risa is on the Arápache Reservation, he wonders what she’ll say to him and what he’ll say back. What will he do when he comes face-to-face with the Akron AWOL? No matter how much he tries to plan for these moments, he knows nothing will prepare him.

Just as night begins to fall, he comes to something wholly out of place, yet wholly expected. A wall of stone, stretching endlessly left and right and rising thirty feet high.

The wall appears impenetrable at first, but as Cam gets closer, he can see that between many of the granite blocks that make up the wall are jutting pieces of shale. It could be just the aesthetics of the wall, but it seems more than just an attempt to make the wall pleasing to the eye. The more he looks at them, the more Cam realizes those jutting stones serve a different purpose. They are a message. A message that says “Go no farther . . . unless your need is greater than the wall is high.”

He surveys the relative positions of the jutting stones, then begins to climb. It is not an easy task. The Arápache apparently give sanctuary only to AWOLs who can pass the test. He wonders if any have fallen and died in the process.

At the top of the wall, the sun, which has been blocked by the granite stones, strikes him with such intensity, he almost loses his grip. He thought it was already below the horizon, but instead it lingers on the treetops. He wonders if anyone can see him. There certainly isn’t anyone nearby—the forest extends on the other side of the wall. In the distance, though, he can see a town in a valley. He can also see a gorge with what appears to be homes carved right into the cliff sides. He knows this place. Or at least a small part of him knows it.

He climbs down the other side of the wall and makes his way toward the village.

• • •

It’s long after dark before he comes out of the forest. The town is both quaint and modern at once. Sparkling white adobe and brown brick, sidewalks not of concrete but of lacquered mahogany planks. Expensive-looking cars are everywhere, yet there are also hitching posts for horses. The Arápache live well and choose their technology rather than letting it choose them.

It’s a small town, but not so small that it doesn’t have some nightlife. The central part of town stays busy after dark. There, the restaurants and shops that cater to a younger crowd are bright, inviting, and full of people. He steers clear of them, but does dare to venture onto another commercial street with banks and other daytime businesses, all closed at this time of night. The occasional passerby offers him either hello, or tous, which he assumes means the same in Arápache—he can’t be sure because he received no part of Wil Tashi’ne’s language center. He returns the greeting, being sure to keep the hood of his dark sweatshirt pulled over his hair and dip his face so that it stays in the shadows.

Wil Tashi’ne will have memories of these streets. Most of them will be lost to Cam, part of other people’s brains now. The rest drift within him like scents on the wind. They swirl, they eddy, they move his feet in directions his conscious mind can’t fathom, but he knows to trust them.

One such eddy pulls him down a side street. He doesn’t even remember making the turn—it just happened like something so habitual, it precluded any need for thought. The scent of memory is very powerful here. He lets it lead him to the rosewood door of a shop. The lights are off—the shop, like all the shops on this little side street, is closed.

He tries the doorknob, finds it locked, as he’d known it would be. But there is something more to this door. Thinking about it doesn’t solve the door’s mystery, but he notices that his fingers tingle. He touches the brick of the building just beside the door. Yes—his fingers know something the rest of him does not! He slides a hand along the brick, feeling the rough texture and the rougher patches of cement in between the bricks until his fingers find what they’re looking for. There is a spare key lodged in a mortar gap in the brickwork. The things his hands know! Even when he looks at the key, he has no memory of it.