City of Savages (5 page)

“Go to your mother.” Her eyes are haunted, two tortured ghosts in the firelight. “Now.”

6    SKY

The fire pit laps at our faces and hands, warms our full bowls of peacock stew, and for a moment, the world is a mirage, the crest of a dream. My sister is safe. With a patched eye, a fat lip, and some bruised ribs. But safe.
Alive
.

We eat shoulder to shoulder, huddled over our soup bowls. I’ve even slipped my arm through hers, just to convince myself that she’s really there. It’s an awkward way to sit, I know, but when Phee tried to shrug me off and dig into her dinner with both hands, I couldn’t let her go for some reason.

“All right, weirdo.” She’d shrugged but had flashed me a wide, uneven smile. We both knew how close she had come,
we
had come, to losing everything. “Arm in arm it is.”

Sheep Meadow is now peppered with small fire pits, each one encircled by hungry, tired prisoners perched on stones and logs, since the races have ended and the official census feast has begun. Most of the pits are crammed with people, but after Phee’s brave performance, Rolladin gave us our own fire pit near the solace of the trees, at the edges of the crowd. Ironically, even though she’d demanded that one of us spar in the first place, afterward Rolladin kept asking Phee if she was
okay
. She even checked out Phee’s injuries herself during the archery competitions, instead of letting one of the medics do it, almost . . . almost like she cared. Mom gave her steely eyes the whole time, of course, but that part I expected.

“I still can’t believe that match,” Mom says now, after she comes back from the ration line and settles in close on Phee’s other side, like we’re fencing her in. We had our big reunion on 65th Street, right after Phee’s fight, but Mom and I don’t trust our luck. Like Phee might disappear any moment on us. “Your sister and I were beside ourselves.”

“What, you really thought that Cass-hole was going to take me down?” Phee says to her bowl. But as she plays with her fat lip, I can see fear lingering behind her eyes. And for some reason, I’m still afraid too, as if I’ve just woken up from a long stretch of feverish nightmares.
We came so close
.

Mom pulls both of us into her. “Never, ever,
ever
pull something that crazy again, you hear me?” she whispers.

I can’t help but laugh when I feel Phee shrug next to me and say, “We’ll see.”

*   *   *

The festival becomes warm and loud, as the music kicks up again and some of the warlords begin dancing in the center of the fields, raising and clanking their mugs of Rolladin’s moonshine as they twist and writhe across the Park.

Every year it’s the same. We watch the street-fights and scream for bloodshed. Then some of the fieldworkers compete in the archery contests and field races for extra rations or a day free of duties. Then we’re fed, well for once, and relax under the stars while music plays until midnight. Or until Rolladin’s warlords get sloppy and fights break out, whatever comes first.

It’s one of the few easy days in the Park, and I want to enjoy it, just let myself celebrate—but it’s kind of hard to do. My nerves are still fried, and I can’t seem to sort my feelings out. Fear, adrenaline, envy, anger. And in the dark corners as always, like dust swept under a rug, a sadness I never fully understand.

“Oh God,” Phee mutters next to me. “Here he comes again.”

I follow her eyes and watch Trev bound across the Park with a huge grin on his face and a steaming bowl in his hand. I shake my head and start laughing, try to herd my disconcerting thoughts back into their cages.

“Be nice,” Mom warns my sister.

I feel bad for Phee a lot of times, I really do. Gangly Trevor, self-proclaimed Miller family adoptee, has such a monster crush on my sister that most times, it’s painful to watch them together. But other times, it’s total entertainment. Right now Trevor’s practically sprinting over to our fire, bobbing and weaving through the crowds, arms outstretched like he’s praising the heavens. His peacock stew is spilling over half the Park.

“Phee, the birthday victor! You were amazing!” He breathes excitedly as he approaches us. He looks around for a seat, and I gladly oblige.

“Sky, don’t get up—,” Phee grits through her teeth.

“Oh, I don’t mind.” I know she’s been to hell and back tonight, but we’re still sisters, after all. She’s going to kill me for this, but it’s worth it.

Trevor sits down hastily, right up close to her, his silky black hair flopping over his eyes. “You. Were. Fantastically Incredible,” he sputters. “I didn’t know you had it in you! I mean, of course I knew you did, but to see it, in the flesh.” He looks up at Mom and me, making sure we’re hanging on every word of his eloquent synopsis. “Cass pummels you. Cass knocks you around. Cass beats you senseless. Then you whip out a weapon from some whorelord’s shoe, and whoop! You slice her!” He laughs this choppy, tight little laugh as he wields an invisible knife over the fire.

My mother, saint she is, gives Trevor a huge smile like always. Then she begins stroking Phee’s hair. “She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?”

I feel something small and jagged in my throat, but I nod along with them.

“I’ve known it forever. Since she was a kid—”

“Trev, you’re younger than I am.” Phee rolls her eyes, and mouths to me,
Help
.

“I even bet rations on you with Old Lady Warbler,” Trevor barrels on. “Two full days of meals. This is the first course of many tonight.” He beams as he shoves his stew under Phee’s nose. He then looks into the fire in sudden realization. “Man, I hope I don’t kill the woman.”

“Mrs. Warbler’s been through worse.” Mom laughs and keeps playing with Phee’s hair. “And she’s still as strong as an ox. I think it’s safe to collect on that bet.”

*   *   *

I slowly drift away from the fire as Mom helps Trevor recount Phee’s street-fight scene by scene. It’s not that I
want
to be jealous. That I want to act like a shadow while my sister shines. But I don’t know how to turn these feelings off sometimes. My smile starts to feel hollow, my heart races, and I wonder if people can see right through me, can see how different I am inside. That I’m not hammered out of steel, like Phee is. That I’m not made for this city—while my sister is practically its prodigy.

I wander over to the trees as the music’s tempo picks up and the cheers through the Park become deafening. I stop short of the forest line, just in case any raiders or feeders are lurking out there, waiting to pick at scraps—or lingerers—from the festival. But I’m sure I’m safe. A holdout hasn’t tried to poach the Park since we were kids.

As always when I’m feeling tense and unsettled, I let my mind wander, let my thoughts chain together and drag me to a better place. I think of the past and how much I don’t know about Mom and this city. I picture Mom writing her secrets in that small, tattered blue book, which now belongs to me, and soon, tonight even, I’ll read and share those secrets. Maybe if I know what’s come before, I can take comfort in where I am, and why I’m here, instead of wishing with every fiber of my being to be anywhere else.

I hear a sharp crack of a branch coming from deep in the forest, and panic jolts me. I’m being reckless, have stumbled too close to the woods. But before I can turn to rejoin my family, a swift flash of green darts from tree to tree. It moves again, this emerald lightning bolt, and my heart starts jumping around like a fish in bare hands. Is it an animal? A person?
What kind of person?

I try to remember Mom’s warnings about the tunnel feeders.
Don’t panic. Back up slowly
.
Then run like hell
. And about the raiders.
Empty your pockets. Put down your weapons.
Then curl into a ball of submission
.

But what if you don’t know what kind of holdout you’re dealing with
?

I start shuffling backward, when the green form stops in between the trees, just for a second. It’s a man, a
young
man, his face covered with mud, leaves in his hair like camouflage, the pupils of his eyes so white against his dirty face, they glow like a pair of moons. He meets my gaze.

I give a short, startled gasp. I know the faces of all the male prisoners in the Park—the fieldworkers, the lords. There aren’t many of them. And I’m positive I’ve never seen this one. My mind starts swimming, a realization crashing over me—
was this the stranger outside the crowds, during the street-fights?

But before I can think through it, he’s gone.

I take a step closer to where this disappearing woodsman was, sprint back and forth a bit between the trees to try to find him. But the woods are unassuming, the trees stoic.
We saw nothing
, they seem to whisper.
You’re conjuring ghosts.

Am I really starting to see things? My imagination has gotten the better of me before. But not like this . . . and not twice.

I take a deep breath and quickly scout once more around the wide, knotty oak where I saw him.

Nothing. No footprints, no markings, no proof.

*   *   *

I don’t say anything about what I think I saw to Mom, Phee, or Trevor once I get back to the fire, or during the walk home after the festival. I try to stop dwelling on it, try to convince myself that it was the firelight bouncing off the underpass, and the moonlight hitting the trees, creating shadows. And by the time we ride the wave of the crowd through the Carlyle lobby and up the grand marble stairs, I’ve managed to quiet my mind.

As soon as we’re back in the room, Mom’s first in the bathroom to redo her ankle splint, so Phee and I fall down on our fluffy bed with its soft, sinking middle. Phee flops her arm over my stomach, and I laugh and push her away. We smell of blood, air, and earth, but it’s comforting instead of gross. We’re warm and alive. And together. I breathe deeply, think only of what I have to be thankful for, just try to focus on this moment.

Mom pokes her head into the bedroom and sees us lying on our mattress. “Up,” she says.

“I’m never moving again,” Phee murmurs into her pillow. “I just saved our butts for the winter. That’s like a lifetime of free passes.”

I laugh and nudge her gently. “Come on. You know she won’t stop hassling us until we do what she says.”

Phee groans and finally gets up to let Mom help her change her wound dressings. And now that Mom’s occupied, I burrow under the bed to dislodge her journal from my backpack. It’s still covered with the tattered
Charlotte’s Web
book jacket, so I prop myself up against the dirty silk headboard, making sure it’s impossible to see the handwritten pages from any other angle. It’s dangerous, I know, to jump right into reading this in plain view, but I’ve been impatient to get back to it since dinner. I’ve wanted—no,
needed
—more about my mother my whole life, and now her journal from the old world rests in my palms, ready to share.

February 15—So it’s official. Tom decided to leave Robert Mulaney’s studio, to work for his dad and Mary at the firm. I feel like I’ve gutted a bit of his soul—I know how much he loves working with Robert. I loved the two of them working together too—at least some of our old NYU crowd was getting to pursue their dreams. But we need the money, and even though we’ve debated the pros and cons since Sky was born six months ago, we both knew, all along, that this was the only long-term solution.

Tom starts as an admin on Monday. He says he’s fine with it, but I know he’s lying. We dance around each other these days.

I really,
really
hope he and Mary don’t kill each other.

February 28—I’ve been feeling crappy recently, tired and stretched thin. It’s just me at home, and there’s been no break from Sky. There’s been no break at all.

I feel a pang of guilt but keep reading.

Plus, Tom’s been getting back to the apartment and making a big stink each night, like he’s the only one put out by our new arrangement. Mary apparently takes every chance she gets to remind him that he’s crawled back to his family. How he’s low man on the Miller totem pole. How he failed as an artist. Blah, blah, blah.

I try to be empathetic, but I’m so tired by the time he gets home that I’m resentful that he thinks he has the right to complain. He gets to talk to adults! Put on fresh underwear! Order out for lunch! While I’ve essentially kissed good-bye any hope of
actually
starting my novel. The days keep flying by in a whirl of feedings and diapers.

And between you and me, most times I think he’s lying, that he’s just dressing up his own insecurities.
I’ve never really seen that side of Mary. Tough-as-nails negotiator, yes. Spitfire CEO-in-training, sure. But vindictive? Belittling? Impossible?

Tom’s a drama queen.

March 3—I hate the subways. Really. We’ve been sitting here for the past hour, and the conductor hasn’t even bothered to let us know when we’ll be moving. MTA, aka Majorly Thoughtless Assholes.

Mary’s been holding Sky and is somehow keeping her quiet. Whispering these cute little stories about all of Mary’s favorite animals, the shy giraffe and the noble polar bear and whatever else keeps Sky giggling and gurgling in the corner.

She’s so good with her. It makes me feel sad, and guilty, that Mary will never have any of her own. And the sadness is uncomfortable, sits like another passenger squeezed between us. On New Year’s Eve, after we put Sky to sleep and were way too drunk on Tom’s Manhattans and Jim had passed out on our couch, Mary admitted that she’d had a fourth miscarriage. Since then, she’s stopped talking about her and Jim trying, and I’ve stopped asking.

Anyway, we’re on our way to the zoo now, where Mary’s going to give us her special “zoo volunteer” behind-the-scenes tour—she even bought Sky a stuffed monkey. We’re giving Tom a Daddy Day Off to work on some big installation with Robert up at the studio. I know how much he misses it.

March 3, later—Still haven’t moved, and it’s been at least two hours.