Taken (3 page)

“I have to be there, Emma,” I say, turning toward her. She’s closer than I anticipate and her eyelashes nearly brush my chin. “Please? Help me get there?”

Her eyebrows rise slightly, as if she is surprised by my obvious desire to attend the ceremony. Of course I have to be there. This is the last of the lasts, the final good-bye. Emma waits for me to find my balance before leading me from the building.

It is dark outside, and late. Blaine’s birthday is moments away. In the glow of the moonlight I can see the schoolhouse ahead. It’s fairly large, even if it doesn’t look it, broken down into three rooms. I used to spend my mornings there, scribbling on parchment with ink and reading from scrolls, all while leaning on a desk that wobbled if you applied too much pressure to its right side. It always made my script unclean. I got poor marks in writing because of the sloppiness, especially when compared to Blaine, but what did it matter? Having neat writing doesn’t protect you from the Heist.

We are slow at first, the ground seeming to swim beneath me. The farther we walk, the stronger and more confident I become, but it’s so nice having Emma beside me that I don’t admit when I can continue alone.

In the town center, the ceremony bonfire burns brightly, illuminating the Council Bell, which is used to call meetings to order. Blaine stands beside it, receiving the individuals who line up to say their good-byes. He looks untouched by the entire affair, no fear or worry creeping into his eyes or escaping from his body in a nervous twitch. Kale lies on a mat beside him, her eyes closed in a peaceful sleep. She’s still too young to understand what’s going on. To her, it’s merely a fun party and the excitement has worn her out.

Emma removes my arm from behind her neck. “Will you be all right?” she asks. She smiles at me painfully and I know she’s referring to the fact that I’m about to lose Blaine, not my injury. I feel like I should say something, but my mouth is dry.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s get in line.”

The entire town is present, women, as always, far outnumbering the men. Children who do not yet understand what they are witnessing run around the bonfire, yelping and playing joyfully. Everyone else exchanges forlorn looks, including the Council Heads. The Danner sisters whisper to each other, standing so close they nearly bleed into one person, while Clara and Stellamay fidget anxiously in the receiving line. The only calm Head—the only person unfazed—is Maude Chilton. She leans on her knotted cane and stares headlong into the fire. Each line that creeps its way across her weathered face and toward her chalky hairline is illuminated.

Maude has been around since the beginning, forty-seven years to be exact. I know this only because I’ve read the scrolls that are stored in our library. Maude was thirteen back when Claysoot was founded. There were no adults.

Now Maude leads the Council. This would be something to brag about if it weren’t for all that she’s lost. Every son Maude’s ever known, every nephew or grandson or brother, has fallen victim to the Heist. Most of the girls she grew up with have died from disease or old age. Perhaps this is why she can stay so calm with each ceremony. Perhaps she is numb.

Emma and I join the line. We are the last two, with the exception of Maude, who always brings up the rear. As I wait for my turn, I watch the villagers greet Blaine. Some clasp his hands, give him a firm pat on the shoulder. Others cry. Sasha, while she hasn’t been slated to Blaine in years, brushes aside tears after breaking from his arms. Finally only Emma and I remain. I let her go first.

She rushes to Blaine with surprising force, looping her arms around his neck. He returns the hug. They exchange words I can’t quite make out, which is just as well, I suppose. Emma’s good-bye is not mine to hear. When they break apart, Blaine squeezes her hand reassuringly.

Before she turns to leave, Emma rises on her toes and plants a kiss on Blaine’s cheek. I can’t help but feel jealousy stir in the pit of my stomach. It courses through me, envious of her kiss, irritated with how clearly she will miss him. It’s disgusting, hanging on these selfish thoughts when Blaine will soon be gone forever. Why can I not be decent? Why can I not say good-bye?

It’s my turn.

Blaine speaks first.

“Hey, Gray.” He is still wearing the new jacket.

“Hey.” It’s all I can muster.

“You missed the feast.”

“That’s okay. There will be others.” And it’s true. For every Heist there is a ceremony, and for every ceremony there is a feast, to take our minds off the gravity of the situation.

“You seem well,” I add, looking up at him, my mirror image with blue eyes. I doubt I will be so calm this time next year. I don’t have the composure he does. I’ll likely be one of the boys who melts down as the Heist approaches, becomes a fidgeting mess during the ceremony, and collapses in panic.

“There’s nothing I can do to stop it,” Blaine says. “It’s coming either way, so I might as well try and enjoy these final moments with everyone.”

Final moments. Last moments.

“I’m going to miss you, Blaine.” I can’t bring myself to look at him.

“I’m going to miss you, too, but I’ll be seeing you soon. Whatever comes next, death or otherwise, I think we’ll meet again.”

He winks at me. It catches me off guard, such a playful gesture on such a grave night, but then I realize he is consoling me. I should be comforting him, especially with what he faces, and yet here is, telling
me
that everything will be fine. He plays big brother so well.

I grasp him tightly, locking my arms around his back, and he returns the hug. It is not long or drawn-out, and neither of us cries; but when I finally let go and walk away, I feel as though an integral piece of me has been ripped from my chest.

Maude approaches Blaine and I want her to go slowly. I don’t want it to end, because when she finishes, it will be time. It has to be almost midnight; and with midnight a new day will break: a day that is Blaine’s birthday and also his end. Maude hugs Blaine delicately and she whispers her good-bye into his ear. She steps away. We wait.

And then it happens, the same way it always does. The ground begins to shake. It is soft at first, tiny pieces of dirt and rubble bouncing about our feet, and then, suddenly, more violent. Some people drop to their knees, unable to stay balanced. The wind howls. The world spins. And then, light. It breaks from the sky like a spear shooting through parchment, effortless and fluid. It expands, stretches, becomes so bright that it hurts my eyes.

I’m usually on the ground at this point, shielding myself from the light and trying not to throw up. I feel sick even now—the Heist always seems to have that effect—but I force myself to stay upright. I focus on Blaine. I keep him in my sight. His eyes are open wide despite the blinding glare, but he does not look afraid. The light encircles him, as if drawn to his body. He is a gleaming spectacle, a burning flame. And then there is one final jolt of the ground, an explosion of brilliance, and he’s gone.

As quickly as it began, the disturbance is over. People stumble to their feet, brushing dust from their bodies and rubbing their eyes in relief. We moan and cough, our senses steadying, and then Maude calls out through the crowd.

“Let us have a moment of silence,” she croaks in her dry, brittle voice, “for Blaine Weathersby, who on the morn of his eighteenth birthday, was lost to the Heist.”

FOUR

BLAINE BEING GONE IS KIND
of like when Ma died, only this time I’m alone for good. I spend the first few days forgetting his absence is permanent. I catch myself looking up from dinner, expecting to find him walking through the door. I feel him moving through the house behind me, but when I twist around, the room is desolate and cold.

About two weeks in, when it begins to feel real and I know he’s not returning, I break down for the first and only time. I spend an entire evening in bed, muffling cries into my pillow. I don’t let anyone see it, but I’m terrified. I feel empty, as if half of me is gone, and I have no family left; Ma had a brother, who had a son, and both are long gone. I have Kale, I suppose, but I can’t be the father she needs. I’m not good with her the way Blaine was. I think the most sickening thought is that I only have a year left myself. I have one year until I’m eighteen and no one to even share it with.

In Claysoot I am a spectacle. People give me sympathetic looks and halfhearted smiles, as if they mean to say, “Oh, Gray, it’s all right.” I find peace in the woods. Amid the tree limbs and pinecones, I am free; no eyes follow me, no thoughts flood my mind. There, I feel like myself.

On the bright side, at least I was able to say good-bye to Blaine. I read a scroll in the library when I was younger that documented the phenomenon of the Heist. The people of Claysoot didn’t always know what it was. In fact, when the very first Heist took place, no one even realized until the following morning. It was Maude’s older brother, Bo Chilton, who mysteriously went missing. After a thorough search of the town and woods, he was declared dead even though a body was never found. It was odd, Bo disappearing like that, completely out of character. He was the eldest of the original children, their main leader. Calm. Smart. Responsible.

The day the originals opened their eyes to find their town in ruins, they panicked. They suspected a strong storm had been the culprit, knocking them unconscious in the process, but they couldn’t remember the bad weather rolling in. They couldn’t remember anything from before the disaster, and with the exception of siblings, they couldn’t even remember each other. In the blink of an eye, neighbors had become strangers.

Before the group could fall into chaos, it was Bo who rounded up tools and started rebuilding the community. He shook sense into the others, assigning each person a specific task. In a matter of months, the town was well on its way to recovering. The crops were nursed back to life. The fences around the livestock fields were refortified and the animals, which had wandered off into the woods, were corralled and brought back to town. Bo set up the Council, comprised of five heads elected by the community, and since no one could recall the name of their home, he even rechristened the place, slapping two words together that all too accurately described the makeup of most of the town’s earth. Clay-rusted roads, and a film of soot-like dirt so persistent it could only be avoided by escaping into the woods.

When the Wall was discovered, Bo volunteered to go over first and scout things out, but he was unable to see what lay on the other side. The view from a large oak tree in the northern portion of the woods yielded nothing but pitch blackness beyond the Wall, and he deemed it unsafe. He tried to talk others out of climbing, claiming the Wall was likely built to keep something at bay, but a few tried. Their bodies came back a charcoaled mess, burned and lifeless, and Bo’s assumptions were proven right.

Bo was the reason that the original children, wild and panic-stricken, were transformed into a united team capable of rebuilding their community. But there was still no explanation for his disappearance. A few months later, another boy went missing, and a week after that another. Eventually Maude noticed that the disappearances seemed to be happening to boys of a certain age. It was always the oldest one, and then, finally, she realized it was always the boy turning eighteen.

They ran the first experiment on Ryder Phoenix. He sat in the center of town on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, everyone else around him, and they waited. That was the first night they all witnessed it, felt the ground shake and saw the sky light up. That was the night they had proof.

Maude convinced the group to repeat the experiment. For the next several birthdays, the same thing happened. Boys disappeared, swiped from the town in a matter of seconds, and always on the morn of their eighteenth year. Each one was taken, stolen, lost to a consistent and time-specific Heist.

Once they understood this, some boys began to panic. A few tried to escape before their eighteenth birthday. They climbed the tree in the northern portion of the woods that grew close enough to the Wall to aid in their crossing, but they always reappeared. Dead. Most of the boys came to accept that the Heist was unavoidable. Maude took over for her brother as Head of the Council, and arranged the first-ever ceremony. While the Heist was inescapable, a preparation for it was not. With a ceremony everyone could at least say good-bye, something Maude was never able to do with her brother. With a ceremony, people could make peace.

I haven’t quite made peace with Blaine’s Heist, though. I’m not sure I ever will. I know it’s just the way life is, that part of living is dealing with the consequences of the Heist, but Blaine’s loss has made it personal. He’s gone and he’s never coming back. It feels wrong in a way I can’t quite pinpoint. Above all, it’s simply unfair.

There is a knock on my door and I’m pulled from my thoughts. It’s bright out, late morning. I should be hunting already, but I had dreams littered with Heists and my internal clock has been off since Blaine disappeared. I climb from bed, pull on a pair of pants, and answer the door.

“Well, good morning, you lazy moper,” Chalice greets me, her face abnormally chipper. She looks whole again, any damage I inflicted long gone.

“What do you want?”

“Maude wants to see you.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Great.” I slam the door in her face and a picture hanging on the wall crashes to the floor. I probably shouldn’t be so rude, but I’ve never liked Chalice. Unlike Blaine, I refuse to make excuses for her.

I stoop to collect the fallen frame, which houses a charcoal drawing of the Council building done by Blaine as a child. The frame has broken on impact, and as I collect the pieces, I notice something behind Blaine’s childhood sketch: a second piece of parchment that is coarse, but not as faded as the original artwork. I lift it from the debris and unfold it carefully.

It is a letter, written in script I would recognize anywhere.

To my eldest son,
it begins. This is Ma’s handwriting, careful and clean. I take a deep breath and keep reading.