The Unquiet (16 page)

My heart stops when I see the mess Cecily left on our kitchen table this morning.

My hands grip my coat. “I don't understand,” I say. My voice is empty. “What is this place? What are you doing?”

The two Robbies look at each other and then at Gray. Edith looks down at the ground.

I
step toward the screens and then step back again. The room is filled with them. All these faces. But only one house, one image, matters to me. I scrutinize it until I am certain that it is mine and that it is not in my imagination. When I speak, I am surprised that my voice does not waver, that it is firmer than I feel.

“Take my house off the screen,” I say.

Robbie holds his hands up in protest. “This isn't about us,” he says. “This is about them. We've only hacked into their system, to see the things that they're seeing. To know the things
they know and, if we need to, manipulate their systems. We can remove your image from a place it's not supposed to be. It's keeping you safe. How are we supposed to know when you're in trouble if—”

“Take my house off the screen,” I say again, except this time I have turned to look at Gray. He understands that I mean it. He ignores Robbie's words and walks slowly over. He turns a small knob and the screen goes black, and once it is, I push past him. I start back up the stairs.
This was a mistake. Everything was a mistake.
Those words are clear even without my saying them. Suddenly every single moment since I met Edith is playing in my mind. From the moment I ran into her with Cecily up until now. The fact that we happened to meet in town. The fact that she put a piece of paper in my pocket with a note and an address I didn't watch her write. Which means she had written it beforehand and knew she would run into me.

They've been watching me.

They all follow me up. And when I turn around, Roberta is holding a gun pointed right at my chest. I'm not surprised. “You have to understand, Lira,” she says, “that we have to sort this out.”

I shake my head. I am dangerously close to crying; that
makes me even angrier. “I have no idea what you people are doing, and I don't care. I won't tell anyone.”

Roberta steps closer. There is apology in her tone. “Look, once you're a part of the group, you're a part of the group. It isn't safe for us any other way. We know that Cecily and your grandparents matter to you in some capacity. We have seen that, and I'm sure you understand what I am going to say now.”

Menace flickers in her eyes. I think I have the same look in mine. I cross my arms and stand there, waiting. There are four of them against me, and I cannot win. Roberta knows it, too, because she puts the gun down as a show of good faith. “We just want to talk to you,” she says. “We were waiting until we knew one another better, and now we do. We trust you. And we want to share our ideas with you, that's all.”

She pauses. If she is waiting for me to reciprocate with my own declarations of trust, she will wait forever.

“But before we talk,” she continues, “let's get one thing clear: If you ever tell anyone about us and this place or what you have seen here, I will kill you myself. Right after I kill your sister.”

I'm not really sure how I manage to reach her, how my hand wraps around her neck. Suddenly my arms are bruised, and my lips taste like blood, but I do not remember fighting
her, do not remember winning. Don't know how my hands got to her neck. Gray and Robbie pry us apart, but Edith wraps her arms around herself, stays where she is. I shout, “Why did you bring me here?”

And Edith says, sobbing, “I don't remember anymore. I'm sorry, Lira.”

“You told me I was here to be your friend,” I remind her.

“You are my friend,” she insists.

Robbie holds me back. He is twice my size.

“You're right,” Roberta says to Edith, rubbing her throat. “She's good.”

My head snaps back up.

“I'm good at what?” I ask. “I'm good at what, Edith?”

Edith doesn't look at me. “Lira,” she pleads, but she doesn't say anything else to me. To Robbie, she says, “Let her go. And give us a few minutes. I'll talk to her.” When Robbie lets go of me, I think about running. But there is nowhere to run to. I'd be found in moments. Edith tells them we'll talk in Gray's truck. He keeps the keys.

I am cold now. As cold as I can possibly be.

I follow her into his truck. I do it with every intention of killing her if I get a chance.

“Don't tell me,” I say once I'm inside, because I already
understand that this whole thing—the farmhouse, the friendship—was her doing. “Don't say it.” I stare out the window and wonder how I can be so angry and yet sit so still. There's a knife in my boot. That's what I have to reach.

Edith takes a deep breath. “Have you thought,” she says, “about what would happen if we could stop people coming through the portals?”

My head snaps in her direction. “What?” I whisper. I am afraid I didn't hear her correctly. At the same time I'm not sure I want to hear her again.

“The cottages would stop, Lira,” she says. “We wouldn't have to do this anymore. We could be free. If people knew we were here . . .”

My voice croaks. “Knew
who
was here?” I ask.

“Sleepers,” she says. “If people knew what we were doing, if we went public with everything—” Her lips move, but I am barely listening. Her plan is to find as many cottages as possible. To take pictures of the children. Of the Madames and Sirs. “They would have to believe us,” she says, “because of the trackers in our wrists. Because of the pills we take that make us healthier than nonsleeper children. They would believe us because of what we know and how we've been trained. And when we show them the portals . . .”

I am staring at her with my mouth wide open. “You want to tell the world about us,” I say, still hoping I am wrong.

Her voice is soft, almost nonexistent. “We would be careful, of course. We could start by leaking the story to a newspaper. We could start a rumor. Even if they don't believe us, at the very least, it would make someone think. Make someone wonder. Then the cottages will end. Even if they don't, telling the people of this Earth about us would give them a fighting chance against us.”

I look away from her. I stare forward again.

Why?
It is the question on the tip of my tongue, but it never leaves my lips. Edith must hear it anyway because she answers me in her still soft voice. “Look at what they have made us into, Lira. Look at what we have become for them. All the things we have had to do. All the guilt we must carry with us. And Gray.”

“What about Gray?” I ask.

She drops her eyes. “You have no idea what they make him do. Every single day. He was different before, we all were, but I am afraid of what he will become at the end.”

Her words make no sense to me. We are Safes. Whatever missions they send Gray on, they are for the good of our people. If Gray did not have the ability to kill, I would not
be here today. I would have died in that orchard when I was fourteen years old.

I try to understand the emotions running through me. I am first shocked and confused. Then I am scared, because in the furthest corner of my mind there is a voice that is saying absolutely nothing. That does not agree or disagree. Finally there is only one right reaction, and it is the one that sticks. I can feel my face twist with it. Horror, revulsion. Who are these people? Who am I sitting with? “Traitor,” I spit at her the way Madame would do. The way we've been trained to do, except we've been trained to do much worse. My voice shakes when I speak. “You're supposed to be loyal to
us
, to our cause, Edith, not this. I know Alex's death did something to you, scared you, but this . . . this is wrong.”

“That's not—” she begins.

I cut her off. “I thought you'd grown up when I saw you. I thought we all had, but you're all exactly the same. All of you. You think being nice to people is going to get you somewhere? You think that you can be a murderer today but that it makes it better if you warn them? Do you think they will forgive us for the people we've already killed if we tell them we're sleepers? For the ones that we have already replaced?”

Edith flinches. “Lira . . .” I'm surprised to see that I have
the power to hurt her this badly with my words. She sniffs and looks sadder than I've ever seen her. As though she already knows how this conversation is going to end. Julia, Roberta and Robbie, Gray . . . I cannot believe she has managed to convince all these people to agree with her, to turn on Madame and our whole lives and our whole cause. She wants to kill us all.

“What about these people?” she says finally. “The ones we are killing?”

“What about the ones we left at home?” I say. “What about us? What about everything and everyone that're going to disappear from our Earth in the next few years? I might not agree with you, but that doesn't mean I don't care. I care about different people than you do.” I shake my head. “You're not asking to be my friend. You're asking me to be a part of this. Why should I die for you? Why should I die for them?”

“Why should they die for us?”

I stare at her, waiting for her to laugh. Waiting to hear her say this is a joke. But I can see it in her eyes. She wants to tell the truth. She's hoping it will absolve us of what we have done.

But it is a suicide mission. It will cost our lives.

“Lira . . .”

“I'm done here,” I hear myself say. I do not recognize my voice. “Either kill me or let me go, but I won't come back.”

Edith sniffs. “We can live with you not being a part of things. That doesn't mean you have to go. I'll talk to them. It's all my fault, and I'll fix this.”

I say nothing. We both know she is lying. It is impossible for me to remain here with them as nothing but their friend. We sit in silence for a long time. I stare out the window and watch it grow darker. How swiftly is this world being taken over? How many of our people are here, and how much longer before the war starts? There are too many questions with few answers. It's this part that is killing us. This waiting. Turning our own minds against us.

“I could never survive like that,” I tell Edith finally, my voice so small it is almost a whisper. “Being your friend and still being a sleeper at the same time. I'll fall apart. I'm weak, not like the rest of you.”

Edith reaches for my hand. I bunch it in a fist, but she holds it anyway. “So stay here, and if you do fall apart, we'll be the only ones who know. Go back out there and you're lost, and there'll be no one to mind your back. You think you're the only one falling apart? We all have our doubts. It's how we let it define us that matters.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Edith lets go of my hand. She shakes her head at me.

“We're all mad, Lirael. All of us. And the maddest ones of all are the ones who think they are sane.”

I don't look at her, but I say, “You're making a mistake. You're all going to die for this.” It matters that she know this, that I tell her this. And if I thought begging on my knees would change her mind, I would do it, too. How did we become so different so quickly? How did our paths diverge? All the Madames in all the cottages failed six people. And if there are these six, how many more? How many people on our Earth are counting on us to pull through for them only to have this happen?

“My brother did you a favor once,” Edith says, “or have you forgotten already?”

I swallow, shake my head. We've never talked about it, but I know what she means. “I'll find a way to pay him back. But not like this.”

“I guess he knew you would say that.” She removes a set of keys from her pocket and tells me where to leave the truck. Then she climbs out. She does not look back at me, but I will have an impression of her eyes forever. They will haunt me. I start the truck before she can change her mind. In the
rearview mirror all the others except Gray are running, trying to catch up to me. They look mad. I don't care.

Just because it is difficult being a sleeper does not mean I have lost faith in our cause. In our Earth. I have not. I never will.

I should go to Miss Odette now, tonight. I should tell her what they are planning.

But I tell myself that it is enough if I don't see them again, if I do every single thing in my power not to think about them, not ever.

H
e doesn't have the skateboard the next time I see him. I leave the flower shop, and he walks up to me, introduces himself, saying, “I'm Jack.” And when I say, “Good for you,” he walks alongside me. I am on my way back to the bakery. I walk faster. Jack falls behind. I am about to breathe a sigh of relief when I hear a thump.

I turn around. Jack is lying on the ground, in the middle of the street. He has tripped over a small rock. “For goodness' sake,” I say. “Did you fake that?”

“Sure,” he says, sitting up. He is a bad liar. When he tries
to stand, he is in pain. He looks even weaker today than the last time I saw him.

“I've got it,” he says when he sees my outstretched hand. But he lets me hold his arm.

I see this moment when I help him up and hate it because it is the moment when I start to feel sorry for him. You cannot truly hate a person you feel sorry for; it's one or the other. I don't want to be friends with this sickly man. But then I let him walk beside me as I head to the bus stop. I even go the long way for his benefit, through the park where children play and their mothers chase after them. I do not introduce myself. I do not answer any questions. I just walk.

Finally Jack hobbles over to a park bench.

He sits and rubs his knees while trying to pretend he is doing something else. “That stupid rock,” he mutters.

I want to tell him that it's too late for me not to know that he is sick, that I know what sickness looks like, smells like. I breathe it in every day. Instead I stand next to him, shifting my weight from the one foot to the other.

“I'm just going to sit right here for a second, okay,” he grits out. When I don't join him, he squints up at me. “How old are you?”

“What if something happens to us?” I ask, instead of
answering him. “What if we're breaking some mortal rule? What if talking to each other is so far out of character for our alternates that we're marked because of this?”

“Then we're about to find out,” he says. “Because they'll kill us.”

I scuff my boot against the ground. “Are you nervous?” he asks.

I look up and say, “If your question is whether or not I want to die here in a dirty park with some stranger, then you know the answer.”

He ignores my jab, looks me over again. “How do you feel about tuna sandwiches?”

“I don't need taking care of.”

He's not done talking. “I tried to kill myself two summers ago,” he blurts out. “I figured there was something wrong with me. I wasn't a very good sleeper. I was always asking too many questions. Handlers don't like us asking questions, and I had all these doubts. They don't tell you about that part. The part where it gets too hard.” He laughs. “I guess it doesn't happen often. Their training is pretty effective, isn't it?”

“I don't have any doubts, Jack.”

“Yes, you do. And they're only going to get worse.”

“Okay,” I say. I want to leave. This is not what I need. Not
after leaving Edith and Gray and the farmhouse behind.

“Have you ever been back?”

I'm not really sure what I am asking.
Where?
I am asking, but he shakes his head.

“After a while,” he says, “the two sides of a coin start to look exactly the same. You can't tell whether you're looking at two heads or two tails. You accept whichever side you're standing on.”

I sit on the bench and pull my legs up against my chest, stare off into the distance, watching the children play. I am convinced now that it's not a good idea to have this much time to think during a war, to ask questions, to witness the world. Look at what happened with Edith. The best kind of war is one fought with one's eyes closed. A war where you hold a gun and you don't know where you are shooting.

But no. That's not right either. There is nothing brave about that kind of war. Only cowards fight it.

“You should try to eat more,” he says quietly. “You should try to . . . hide the way you feel. Do everything you can to keep it from them. If you seem weak in any way, it's only a matter of time before they kill you, no matter what your handler says.”

I know,
I think, which surprises me. Even still, I hear Madame's whispered threat every night before I fall asleep.
“Weak, weak little girl.” Maybe I have never stood a chance. I picture Miss Odette behind her desk. What do her smiles really mean?

Nobody lies better than a handler, not even a sleeper.

“I don't even know the way I feel,” I confess.

“Tell me,” Jack says. “Did you stop eating after you killed her?”

I don't meet his eyes. “I'm just thin, is all, Jack. There's no crime against that. Leave me alone.”

“It's strange,” he says, “who we become when we're not being who we're supposed to be. Sometimes you're walking along on your merry way, and you think you're happy until you meet someone. And suddenly it occurs to you, for the first time, how lonely you are. How you don't want to die alone after all. Suddenly all your plans are shot to hell.”

I shake my head. “I don't know what you're talking about. Please don't go getting any ideas.”

I hate how carefully he watches me. I hate how transparent I apparently am. I feel like I am standing outside my skin. “I'll bet you weren't always this sad,” he says to the ground after a while. “You were probably very different before they brought us here.”

“You don't know anything about me.”

“Maybe not. But I'd like a friend at the end, and I haven't got much time left. Just a friend, nothing more. So, if I can get clearance from both our handlers, will I see you again?”

“No,” I say, and stand abruptly. The last thing I need is another friend problem, and a dying one at that.

“Thank you,” he says.

“I said no.”

He rubs his knees again. “Meet me at the café down the street this time next week. There's more hope than you think. I'll tell you all about it.”

I walk away, but then I come back because I have left my scarf behind. I snatch it out of his hand, but I suspect my fury doesn't even reach my eyes, that my eyes are as blank as they ever are.

“I have a feeling that we are meant to save each other,” he says softly, letting the scarf go. “That's all.”

“From what?” I say.

I don't look at him as I walk away. I don't wait for his answer.

Nothing is ever that simple.