The Gathering (18 page)

Nobody speaks.

Not for a long, long time.

My nausea turns to anger. White-hot, vitriolic anger that burns like acid. At the government, for allowing this to happen. At the public, for ignoring it. At my parents, for condemning an innocent woman to a place like Shady Wood. At myself, for letting her stay as long as she did.

I clasp her hands tighter. “You’ve been fighting.”

She nods absentmindedly. “When you’ve seen what I have seen, when you’ve lived what I have lived, there is little choice.”

*

Exhaustion wins. My grandmother takes a hot bath. Vivian gives her a sedative to help her sleep, and she retires to a bedroom not too far from my own. The next morning, I wake up early and go looking for her.

Her room is empty. She’s not in the dining room or the great room or the library. I find Geoffrey in the butler’s pantry. He says he saw her walking outside. So I rush out a back door, into a courtyard, and spot her sitting on a bench at the edge of the woods. As I approach, she doesn’t seem to hear me. She doesn’t seem to notice when I sit beside her, either.

She sits with her eyes closed, her face soaked in shadow, the sun at our backs while birds chirp all around.

“How’d you sleep?” I ask.

“All right.”

The birds chirp some more. The sun creeps higher behind us. I still have so many questions, but she looks so fragile, it’s hard to know how to ask them.

“I like the outdoors,” she finally says.

“Me too.”

“Being indoors makes me feel claustrophobic.”

I can imagine why. She was locked inside a white box of a room with no windows for fifteen years. Even a house as large as the Rivards would feel confining. I glance at the leather straps around her wrists. “What are those?”

She rubs them. “Some things are hard to get used to.”

Like wrists that are free. Unbound. The thought makes me sad. And angry.

“They also remind me.”

“Of what?”

“That I never want to end up there again.”

My anger grows. So does an overwhelming sense of protectiveness. I will do everything within my power to make sure that never happens. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“The man with the scars. Is he after you?”

Her face contorts. “The two of us have a long history.”

A memory brushes against my thoughts, like an invisible strand of hair tickling my skin. The first time I found my grandmother in a dream and I discovered the truth—that she wasn’t dead—Scarface was there. That’s when I first met him. He’d been dressed in a white coat like a doctor. He said my grandmother was no longer his patient.

“I gave him one of his scars.”

My head jerks back. “
What
?”

“We fought. I won. And for one glorious week, I thought he was gone forever. I tasted freedom.” She twists her fingers in her lap; it doesn’t stop the shaking. “But then he returned with a vengeance, and he had his scar. A constant reminder that while I could hurt him, I could never be rid of him.”

Her words are like battery acid on my tongue. I take my grandmother’s shaking hand and squeeze it between mine. I picture him last night—the look on his scarred face when he saw us standing side by side. He was frightened. I’m sure of it. “Maybe together, we can.”

Her chin trembles. Moisture gathers in her eyes. With her cold hand sandwiched between mine, she drops her chin and weeps. I can’t tell if her tears are hopeful or hopeless.

*

That night, the sound of Luka’s screaming tears me from sleep, my heart revving from calm to spastic in half a second flat. I kick off my covers and sprint across my room when the screaming stops. The sudden silence echoes down the hallway. I stay frozen in place for a few pulse-pounding seconds, then tiptoe toward his bedroom.

Luka sits up in bed, his chest heaving.

Vivian is already there, looking every bit as put-together in her pajamas in the dead of night as she does during the day.

“I’m okay, Tess,” Luka says. He hasn’t looked at me, and yet he notices me standing in his doorway like a ghost. “You can go back to bed.”

Last time he asked me to leave, I listened. I left him with Cap. I let him push me away. I’m not going to do that again. I place my hand on the doorframe, as if holding on will give me the courage to stay.

Vivian hands him a glass of water. “How long have the nightmares been happening?”

Luka takes a drink. “A few days.”

“Did something happen to bring them on?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer.

So I do it for him. “He was held prisoner by the other side.”

Luka’s jaw tightens, but I press on. “They tortured him.”

Vivian frowns. “It sounds like you are suffering from a form of PTSD. I spoke with Elaine today about the same thing. If you like, there’s medicine I can give you that will help—”

“No.” His answer escapes before Vivian can finish her suggestion.

I understand why. The medicine I took masked my gifting. Luka wants nothing more than to find his.

“It’s for anxiety,” Vivian says. “There’s no shame in taking it.”

“I’ll be fine.”

But it’s obvious he won’t. I think about the tumor on his soul. Is this one of the repercussions? Did Vivian tell Luka what Samson said? Because I sure didn’t. “Is there anything else he can do that would help?”

“Finding an activity that will occupy his mind without requiring much thought usually offers a measure of relief. I suggested knitting to Elaine. It can be anything that keeps his hands busy.”

“Like a Rubik’s Cube.” I mumble the words more to myself than anyone else.

“Yes,” Vivian says. “Exactly like that.”

I picture Link, fiddling with the cube. He does it while watching TV. He does it while sitting in front of a computer. His hands are always twisting, twisting, twisting. Is that what his Rubik’s Cube is to him? A way to keep the bad memories away? And if so, what bad memories does he have?

Vivian asks if Luka needs anything else. He says he’s fine, and she leaves.

Her sudden absence has me tugging on my shirtsleeves.

Luka has yet to look at me.

“I guess she doesn’t care about purpling,” I say lamely.

“You should go back to sleep.”

His words are hollow. Empty. They have me coming closer instead of going away, until I’m taking a tentative seat on the edge of his mattress.

“Tess.” His face is hard. “You’re not staying.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

“And I’m not going to wake up screaming in your ear.”

“I don’t care if you do.” I bring my shaky legs onto the mattress and slide beneath the covers, careful to stay on my side of the bed. It’s a big one, so there’s plenty of space between us. I lie down and rest my head on the pillow beside his, my heart crashing inside my chest. Because what if he kicks me out? What if he refuses to let me stay?

He remains sitting, watching me while that muscle in his jaw
tick-tick-ticks
, as if he’s grinding his molars. Finally, he lays back and stares up at the ceiling. I’m not sure how long we stay like that, awake in the silence. I only know that it’s long enough for my heart to settle and my eyes to grow heavy.

When Luka speaks, his voice is low and intimate. “I wish we could leave everything behind. Go somewhere safe.”

I turn on my side and tuck my hands beneath the pillow. “Where would we go?”

He turns his head to look at me. “Somewhere we could stay forever.”

“Like our beach?”

Luka smiles.

It’s the best thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. And even though the thought is like heaven—leaving everything behind to be with him—I know it’s impossible. My grandmother is right. When you’ve seen what I’ve seen, when you know what I know, you have no choice but to fight. As much as I want to hide, as much as I want to pretend that my father is right and evil doesn’t exist, I can’t. Not anymore.

The Symbol

T
he next evening, we gather around the big screen in the great room to watch history unfold. Our president is about to address the nation in a speech predicted to garner more viewers than the last three super bowls combined. Egypt and Sudan have officially signed the ceasefire. For the first time in a long, long time, our soldiers are coming home. All of them.

I imagine Pete and my mom and Leela watching in Thornsdale. My dad watching from prison. Cap and everyone else from the hub watching in Newport, with Non most likely muttering at the television. I imagine everybody across the country—across the
world
—celebrating peace while men dressed in scrubs toss catatonic patients into ditches and set them on fire. This peace is nothing more than a giant ploy, a huge distraction, a massive red herring. Darkness is a tricky, tricky thing. Especially when it masks itself in light.

Beside me, my grandmother knits. The two large needles scrape and click in a rhythmic, soothing cadence that seems to still her shaking. Across the room, Link’s Rubik’s Cube is MIA. He sits with one arm draped over the back of the couch, tapping the leather with his index finger, the notebook with the list open in his lap. He’s been studying it all day, as if searching for the missing piece that might make the puzzle come together.

Jillian sits beside him, her eyes glued to the television. Earlier today, I gave her back the gun I’d been hiding at the bottom of my bag. With the Rivards’ permission, she brought Luka, Link, and I outside for a little target practice. My grandmother joined us, but her shaking hands kept her from participating. She watched as Jillian patiently taught us how to load, unload, and shoot. Luka, of course, picked it up the fastest. Link eventually caught on. I couldn’t hit a target to save my life. But at least I know where the safety button is now. Jillian kept the gun and said we could practice some more tomorrow.

On the television, the camera pans along Pennsylvania Avenue, all the way to Capitol Hill, where celebrators squish together to hear from our president. Flanked by two bodyguards, Cormack walks to the podium, waving proudly as the spectators cheer. She waits for the crowd to quiet, then begins her speech.

Roughly halfway through, during a dramatic pause, one of the bodyguards sneezes. It’s a loud, attention-getting sneeze that has his face turning red.

Without missing a beat, Cormack says, “Gesundheit,” and laughter ripples through the crowd. Smiling, Cormack brushes her hair over her shoulder, and as she does, I see something that has everything inside of me going very still. A small, black symbol. Unmistakably etched on Cormack’s neck.

I stand and move closer to the television.

Cormack’s hair falls back into place, hiding the mark from view.

“Can someone rewind?”

Nobody responds.

I turn around. The Rivards, Link, Jillian, Luka, my grandmother. All of them stare at me. “Please rewind it!”

Marcus points the remote at the television. The feed backs up.

“There!” I tap the screen. “Stop!”

Marcus pushes pause.

The picture on the screen freezes in place.

A flood of adrenaline courses through my veins. My heart races. My mouth goes dry. The president of the United States has the mark on her neck. As plain as day. I press my finger against the spot on the screen. “It’s right there.”

Jillian scrunches up her nose, like she’s trying to see what I’m seeing. “What is?”

I snatch the notebook in Link’s lap and point to the symbol at the top of the page. “
This
.”

All of us stare at one another. It’s like we’re standing on the precipice of a giant discovery. The missing puzzle piece.

I hold up the journal. “I think we just found our king.”

*