Crossed

CHAPTER 37 KY

As the rain comes down I let myself imagine a story for us. The one I would write if I could.

The two of them forgot about the Rising and stayed alone in the township. They walked through the empty buildings. They planted seeds in the spring and harvested in the fall. They put their feet in the stream. They had their fill of poetry. They whispered words to each other that echoed off the empty canyon walls. Their lips and hands touched whenever they wanted for as long as they wanted.

But even in my version of what should happen I can’t change who we are and the fact that there are others we love.

It didn’t take long for other people to appear in their minds. Bram watched them with sad, waiting eyes. Eli appeared. Their parents walked past, turning their heads for a glimpse of the children they loved.

And Xander was there, too.

Back inside the cave, Eli is awake and searching through the papers with Indie. “We can’t look forever,” he says. His voice sounds panicked. “The Society’s going to find us.”

“Just a little longer,” Cassia says. “I’m certain there’s something here.”

Indie puts down the book she held and lifts her pack to her shoulder. “I’m going down,” she says. “I’ll look in the houses again, see if there’s anything we missed.” Her eyes meet mine on her way out of the cave and I know Cassia notices.

“Do you think they’ve caught Hunter?” Eli asks.

“No,” I say. “I think Hunter will finish things on his terms somehow.”

Eli shivers. “That Cavern — it felt all wrong.”

“I know,” I say. Eli rubs his eyes with the heels of his hand and reaches for another book. “You should rest more, Eli,” I tell him. “We’ll keep looking.”

Eli stares up at the walls around us. “I wonder why they didn’t paint anything in here,” he says.

“Eli,” I say more firmly. “Rest.”

He rolls himself back up in a blanket, this time in the corner of the library cave to be near us. Cassia is careful to keep the light of the flashlight away from him. She has twisted her hair back out of her way and her eyes look shadowed with exhaustion.

“You should rest too,” I say.

“Something is here,” she says. “I have to find it.” She smiles at me. “I felt the same way when I was looking for you. Sometimes I think I’m strongest when I’m searching.”

It’s true. She is. I love that about her.

It’s why I had to lie to her about Xander’s secret. If I hadn’t, she wouldn’t have stopped trying to find out what it was.

I stand up. “I’m going to help Indie,” I tell Cassia. It’s time to find out what Indie is hiding.

“All right,” Cassia says. She lifts her hand from the book and lets the page she was reading become lost and unmarked. “Be careful.”

“I will,” I say. “I’ll be back soon.”

Indie’s not hard to find. A flickering light in one of the houses below gives her away, as she knew it would. I make my way down the cliff path, which has grown slippery with the rain.

When I get to the house I look in the window first. The glass pane is wavy with age and water, but I can see Indie inside. The flashlight sits next to her and in her hands she holds something else that gives off light.

A miniport.

She hears me coming. I knock the port out of her hand but my fingers don’t close around it in time. The port hits the ground but doesn’t break. Indie sighs in relief. “Go ahead,” she says. “Look at it if you want.”

She keeps her voice low. In it I hear the sound of wanting something very much. Underneath it I hear the sound of the river in the canyon. Indie reaches out and puts her hand on my arm. It is the first time I have ever seen her willingly touch someone, and it stops me from smashing the miniport against the floorboards.

I look at the screen and a familiar face looks back.

“Xander,” I say in surprise. “You have a picture of Xander. But how—” It only takes me a moment to realize what happened. “You stole Cassia’s microcard.”

“That’s what she helped me hide on the air ship,” Indie says, without a trace of guilt. “She didn’t know. I hid it in with her tablets, and I kept it until I had a way to see what was on it.” She reaches over and switches the port back off.

“Is this what you found in the library cave?” I ask her. “The miniport?”

She shakes her head. “I stole this before we came into the canyons.”

“How?”

“I took it from the leader of the boys in the village the night before we ran. He should have been more careful. All Aberrations know how to steal.”

Not all, Indie, I think. Only some of us.

“Do they know where we are?” I ask. “Does it transmit location?” Vick and I were never sure what the miniports could do.

She shrugs. “I don’t think so. The Society’s coming anyway, after what happened in the Cavern. But the miniport isn’t what I wanted to show you. I was only passing time until you came.” I start to say something about how she shouldn’t have stolen from Cassia, but then Indie reaches into her pack and pulls out a folded square of a thick fabric. Canvas.

“This is what you need to see.” She unfolds the material. It’s a map. “I think it’s the way to the Rising,” she says. “Look.”

The words on the map are encoded, but the landscape is familiar: the edge of the Carving and the plain beyond. Instead of showing the mountains where the farmers went, it shows more of the stream where Vick died, which runs across the plain and down the map. The stream ends in a black inky darkness that has white coded words written across it. “I think that’s the ocean,” Indie says, touching the black space on the map. “And those words mark an island.”

“Why didn’t you give it to Cassia?” I ask. “She’s a sorter.”

“I wanted to give it to you,” Indie says. “Because of who you are.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

She shakes her head impatiently. “I know you can break the code. I know you can sort.”

Indie’s right. I can sort. Already I’ve figured out what the white words say: Turn Again Home.

It’s from the Tennyson poem. It’s Rising territory. Home, they’ve called it. And the way to get to it is by following the stream where the Society dropped poison and Vick died.

“How do you know I can sort?” I ask Indie, putting down the map and pretending I haven’t decoded it yet.

“I’ve been listening,” she says. And then she leans forward. With the two of us sitting in the glow of the flashlight, it seems like the rest of the world has gone black and I’m left alone with her and what she thinks of me. “I know who you are.” She leans even closer. “And who you’re supposed to be.”

“Who am I supposed to be?” I ask her. I don’t lean away. She smiles.

“The Pilot,” she says.

I laugh and sit back. “No. What about that poem you told Cassia? That talks about a woman being the Pilot.”

“It’s not a poem,” Indie says fiercely.

“A song,” I say, realizing. “The words used to have music behind them.” I should have known.

Indie exhales in frustration. “It doesn’t matter how the Pilot comes or if it’s a woman or a man. The idea is the same. I understand that now.”

“I’m still not the Pilot.”

“You are,” she says. “You don’t want to be, so you’re running away from the Rising. Someone needs to bring you back to the rebellion. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“The Rising isn’t what you imagine,” I say. “It’s not Aberrations and Anomalies and rebels and rogues running free. It’s a structure. A system.”

She shrugs. “Whatever it is, I want to be part of it. I’ve been thinking about it my whole life.”

“If you think this will take us to the Rising, why give it to me?” I ask Indie, holding up the map. “Why not give it right to Cassia?”

“We’re the same,” she whispers. “You and me. We’re more alike than you and Cassia. We could leave right now.”

She’s right. I do see myself in Indie. I feel a pity so deep for her that it might be something else entirely. Empathy. You have to believe in something to survive. She’s picked the Rising. I chose Cassia.

Indie’s been quiet for a long time. Hiding. Running. On the move. I put my hand next to hers. I don’t touch her fingers. But she can see the marks on them. I have scars from living here the first time that no Citizen of the Society would have.

She looks at my hand. “How long?” she asks.

“How long what?”

“How long have you been an Aberration?”

“Since I was a child,” I say. “I was three years old when they Reclassified us.”

“And who caused it?”

I don’t want to answer but I can tell we’re on the edge. It’s as though she holds to the walls of a canyon. If I move wrong she will look over her shoulder, let go, and take her chances with the fall. I have to give her a little piece of my story.

“My father,” I answer. “We were Citizens in the Society. We lived in one of the Border Provinces. Then the Society accused him of having ties with a rebellion and sent us all out to the Outer Provinces.”

“Was he a rebel?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. “And then when we moved to the Outer Provinces he convinced our village to join with him. Almost everyone died.”

“You still love him, though,” she says.

I’m on the edge with her now. She knows it. I have to tell the truth if I’m going to keep her hanging on.

I take a deep breath. “Of course I do.”

I said it.

Her hand rests on the ground next to me against the splintered floorboards. The rain outside the window falls in gold and silver dashes in the beam from my flashlight. Without thinking I touch her fingers gently.

“Indie,” I tell her, “I’m not the Pilot.”

She shakes her head. She doesn’t believe me. “Just read the map,” she tells me. “Then you’ll know everything.”

“No,” I say. “I won’t know everything. I won’t know your story.” This is a cruel thing to do because when someone knows your story they know you. And they can hurt you. It’s why I give mine away in pieces, even to Cassia. “If I’m going to go with you, I have to know about you.” I’m lying. I won’t go with her to the Rising, no matter what. Does she know that?

“It all started when you ran,” I say, encouraging her.

She looks at me, deciding. Suddenly — even though she is so sharp-edged — I want to reach out and hold her close. Not the way I hold Cassia. Just as someone who also knows what it means to be an Aberration.

“It all started when I ran,” she says.

I lean closer to listen. Indie speaks more softly than usual as she remembers. “I wanted to escape the work camp. When they dragged me back to the air ship I thought I’d lost my last chance to get away. I knew we’d die in the Outer Provinces. Then I saw Cassia on the ship. She didn’t belong there, or in the camp either. I’d been through her things and I knew that she wasn’t an Aberration.

“So why did she sneak on board the ship? What did she think she could find?” Indie looks straight into my eyes while she talks, and I can see she tells the truth. For the first time she’s completely open. She’s beautiful when she’s not holding back.

“Later, in the village, I heard Cassia talking with that boy about the Pilot, and about you. She wanted to follow you, and that’s when I first thought you might be the Pilot. I thought Cassia knew that you were the Pilot, but that she was keeping it a secret from me.”

Indie laughs. “Later I realized that she wasn’t lying to me. She hadn’t told me that you were the Pilot because she hadn’t realized it herself.”

“She’s right.” I say it again. “I’m not.”

Indie shakes her head dismissively. “Fine. But what about the red tablet?”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t work on you, does it?” she asks.

I don’t answer but she knows.

“It doesn’t work on me, either,” she says. “And I bet it doesn’t work on Xander.” She doesn’t wait for me to confirm or deny. “I think some of us are special. The Rising has chosen us somehow. Why else would we be immune?” Her voice is eager and again I know how she feels. To go from discarded to chosen — it’s what all Aberrations want.

“If we are, the Rising didn’t do anything to save us when the Society sent us out here,” I remind her.

Indie looks at me scornfully. “Why should they?” she says. “If we can’t find our way to them on our own, we shouldn’t be part of the rebellion.” She lifts her chin. “I can’t tell exactly what the map says, but I know it tells us how to get to the Rising. It’s like my mother said it would be. That black spot is the ocean. Where the words are — that’s an island. We just have to get there. And I found the map. Not Cassia.”

“You’re jealous of her,” I say. “Is that why you let her take the blue tablet?”

“No.” Indie sounds surprised. “I didn’t see her take it. I would have stopped her. I didn’t want her to die.”

“You’re willing to leave her here. And Eli.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Indie says. “The Society will find her and take her back where she belongs. She’ll be fine. Eli too. He’s so young. It must have been a mistake that he ended up out here.”

“And what if it’s not?” I ask.

She sends me a long, searching look. “You’ve left people and run away. Don’t act like you don’t understand.”

“I’m not going to leave her,” I say.

“I didn’t think you would,” Indie says. But she’s not defeated. “That’s partly why I gave you the scrap about Xander’s secret. To remind you, if it came to this.”

“Remind me of what?”

Indie smiles. “That you’re going to be a part of the Rising one way or another. You don’t want to run and come with me. Fine. But you’re still going to be part of the Rising no matter what.” She reaches for the miniport and I let her take it. “You’ll join because you want Cassia and it’s what she wants to do.”

I shake my head. No.

“Don’t you think it would be better for you to be part of the Rising?” Indie says bluntly. “The leader, even? Otherwise, why would she choose you when she could have Xander?”

Why would Cassia choose me?

Predicted occupations: nutrition disposal worker, decoy villager.

Predicted chance of success: Not applicable to Aberrations.

Predicted life span: 17. Sent to die in the Outer Provinces.

Cassia would argue that she doesn’t see me the way the Society sees me. She’d say their list didn’t matter.

And to her it doesn’t. That’s part of why I love her.

But I don’t think she would choose me if she knew Xander’s secret. Indie gave me the scrap because she wanted to play on my insecurities about Cassia and Xander. But that paper — and the secret — mean even more than Indie guesses.

Something must show in my face — the truth of what Indie’s said. Her eyes widen and I can almost see her thoughts settling into place: My reluctance to join the Rising. Xander’s face on the microcard. Indie’s own obsession with him and with finding the rebellion. In the whirling, determined kaleidoscope of Indie’s bright, peculiar mind, these pieces make a picture that shows her the truth.

“That’s it,” she says, her voice certain. “You can’t let her go to the Rising without you or you might lose her.” She smiles. “Because that’s the secret: Xander is part of the Rising.”

It was the week before the Match Banquet.

They found me walking home and said, “Aren’t you tired of losing, wouldn’t you like to win, wouldn’t you like to join us, with us you could win.” I told them no. I said I’d seen how they lost and I’d rather lose my own way.

Xander found me the next evening. I was out in the front yard planting newroses in Patrick and Aida’s flower bed. He stood next to me and smiled and acted as though we were talking about something common and everyday.

“Did you join?” he asked.

“Join what?” I asked Xander. I wiped the sweat from my face. Back then I liked digging. I had no idea how much I’d have to do later.

Xander bent down and pretended to help me. “The rebellion,” he said quietly. “Against the Society. Someone approached me this week. You’re part of it, too, aren’t you?”

“No,” I told Xander.

His eyes widened. “I thought you would be. I was sure of it.”

I shook my head.

“I thought we’d both be in it,” he said. His voice sounded strange, confused. I hadn’t heard Xander sound that way before. “I thought you’d probably known about it all along.” He paused. “Do you think they asked her, too?”

We both knew who he meant. Cassia. Of course.

“I don’t know,” I told Xander. “It seems probable. They asked us. They must have had a list of people to approach in the Borough.”

“What happens to the people who say no?” Xander asked me. “Did they give you a red tablet?”

“No,” I said.

“Maybe they don’t have access to red tablets,” Xander said. “I work at the medical center, and I don’t even know where the Society keeps the red ones. It’s somewhere away from the blue and the green.”

“Or it might be that the rebellion only asks people to join who won’t turn them in,” I said.

“How could they know that?”

“Some of them are still in the Society,” I reminded him. “They have our data. They can try to predict what we’ll do.” I paused. “And they’re right. You won’t turn them in because you joined. I won’t turn them in because I didn’t.” And because I’m an Aberration, I thought but didn’t say. The last thing I want to do is draw attention to myself. Especially with a report about a rebellion.

“Why don’t you join?” Xander asked. There wasn’t any mockery in his tone. He only wanted to know. For the first time since I’d known him I saw something like fear in his eyes.

“Because I don’t believe in it,” I told him.

Xander and I were never sure if the rebellion had approached Cassia. And we didn’t know if she’d taken a red tablet. We couldn’t ask her either question without putting her in danger.

Later, when I saw her reading those two poems in the forest, I thought I’d made the wrong choice. I thought she had the Tennyson poem because it was a Rising poem, and I’d missed my chance to be in the rebellion with her. But then I found out that the poem she truly loved was the other one. She chose her own way. And I fell even more deeply in love with her.

“Do you really want to join the Rising?” I ask Indie.

“Yes,” Indie says. “Yes.”

“No,” I tell her. “You want it now. You might be happy there for a few months, a few years, but it’s not you.”

“You don’t know me,” she says.

“Yes, I do,” I say. I lean in fast and close and touch her hand again. She holds her breath. “Forget about all this,” I say. “We don’t need the Rising. The farmers are out there. We’ll all go together, you and me and Cassia and Eli. Somewhere new. What happened to the girl who wanted to leave and lose sight of the shore?” I grab her hand tight and hold on.

Indie looks up, her face stunned. When Cassia told me Indie’s story, I realized what had happened. Indie had told the version about her mother and the boat and the water so many times that she began to believe it too.

But now she remembers what she’s trying to forget. That it wasn’t about her mother. It was about her. After hearing her mother’s song all her life, Indie built the boat and caused her own Reclassification. She failed to find the Rising. She never even lost sight of the shore. And, eventually, the Society sent her away from the ocean to die in the desert.

I know it happened that way because I know Indie. She’s not the kind of person to watch someone else build a boat and set sail without her.

Indie wants to find the Rising so badly she can’t see anything else. Certainly not me. I’m even worse than she thought I was.

“I’m sorry, Indie,” I say, and I feel sorry. I ache all over with how sorry I am for what I’m about to do. “But the Rising can’t save any of us. I’ve seen what happens when you join with them.” I strike a match at the edge of the map. Indie cries out but I hold her off. The fire licks the edge of the fabric.

“No,” Indie cries, trying to snatch the map again. I push her away. She looks around but we both left our canteens back in the cave. “No,” Indie cries out again, and pushes past me out the door.

I don’t try to stop her. Whatever she tries to do — catch the rain or go to the river for water — will take too long. The map is as good as gone. The air fills again with the scent of burning.