The Unquiet (20 page)

I
go to the farmhouse to prove something to myself. It has been nearly two years since I have been there, since I have seen Edith. I go to the farmhouse because I want to know if it is in the same state I left it. If it is, then perhaps I was wrong. They were not found out. Nothing has changed. I am not sure why this matters, but I cannot talk myself out of it. I have to know. My bike takes me there and not the other way around.

When I reach the place, I stand a little ways away and nod in relief.
Good,
I think.
I was right.
But then I stumble off my bike and run to the bushes. I crouch there for nearly a minute,
retching, and I cannot look back. I cannot turn around again to the ruin that has made me right. I crawl backward until I find my bicycle. When I do, I climb onto it and ride back home, back to safety as fast as I can, without turning back once.

The image of the farmhouse burned to the ground, surrounded by nothing but charcoal, stays with me.

Seared scraps of clothes hung off broken glass. Shoes littered the ground. A broken pair of glasses. I did not even get close; these are just the things that had been blown by the wind. Closer, I do not know what I would have found. What the blackbirds could have been circling. The fire must have been recent. At most, a few weeks old.

I tell myself to forget it.

I tell myself it has been almost two years since Edith or any of them mattered to me.

But the next time I see Gray, I do not walk away. We stand in front of the bench, and I pretend to fiddle with my coat. I do not know what to ask, so I say, “I went to the farmhouse.” I wait for him to tell me that the fire was their plan, that they'd moved their rendezvous to another place, but he simply stares at me. I look down at the ground, hating that I do not walk away. “What happened?” I say eventually. “Where is the new farmhouse?”

“There isn't one.” He glances past me, as if he really wants to leave. “Everyone is dead, Lira.”

I am not surprised, but it doesn't hurt any less. My hands clench, and I force them to unclench. I keep the emotion out of my voice. “Everyone?” I say.

“Julia is fine. I can't find Edith.”

My head snaps up. My eyes are full of hope and questions.

“I think maybe she got away,” Gray says, and he's still looking beyond me. My hope reflects in his voice. “Maybe she's hiding. I'm trying to find her.”

“You weren't there?”

“I was working when they came. Julia was at her job, too.”

“Oh.” This is the longest conversation we have ever had without Edith. “You think this happened because of your plan?”

He finally meets my eyes. “It was never my plan,” he says through gritted teeth. “I was helping her because she's my sister, but I didn't agree with her. I knew what she was doing was dangerous. I warned her.”

I can imagine one of his arguments with Edith. Nothing could have changed her mind, not about this, not even her brother.

I take a deep breath of cold air. “How can I help you
find her?” I say it quickly before I can change my mind. Just because I did not choose Edith's side does not mean that I want her gone. And Gray does not look good. I have never seen him look so lost.

“You helped me once,” I say.

He dismisses my words. “You don't owe me anything, Lirael.”

“I know. After we find her, we'll go our separate ways.”

I
sit at the café and wait for two hours. Aunt Imogen has vanished again, this time without coming back, and Cecily is alone at home. I order four cups of coffee and a brioche, the first two cups initially for Jack, but he never shows. Since the first time we met, this has never happened. I walk up to the counter and ask the waitress whether she has seen a man in a wheelchair with a typewriter. “He usually sits over there,” I say, pointing, but she cuts me off.

“I remember him,” she says with a smile. “I remember you, too, but no. Normally he comes two or three times a
week. I haven't seen him for a couple of days.”

I thank her and leave. Outside, everything is white, but it is not the kind of snow that decides a day. It is just cold enough that we can call winter beautiful, the best season and almost mean it. So Jack could get here. He could, but he probably just decided to stay home. I tell myself this and stuff my hands into my pockets and walk in the direction of the bus stop. Maybe he could no longer stand the sight of me. Dying with someone who does not want to be there is worse than dying alone. Dying in itself is bad enough.

My job is done.

So I am surprised when I am suddenly standing outside Jack's apartment building, out of breath, as if I have been running. What could I possibly be running for? Yet my feet carry me into the building and up the stairs. I find the right door, and then my fingers sting from knocking. My whole hand hurts, and I am thinking about what I should do next when the door opens. A woman stands there, frowning at me. She is wearing thick, square glasses and carrying a half-knitted sweater. “Yes?” she says, looking me over her glasses.

At first I think I have the address wrong. I back away and apologize, but then I smell the scent I have come to associate
with Jack: the scent of medicines, of antiseptic cleaners, and, the worst one of all, of decay. He did not always smell like this. But suddenly this is all I can remember, and it makes me speechless.

“Yes?” the woman says again, this time less kindly. She pushes the door closed between us a little more.

I am afraid to ask. I am terrified of the answer and what it might mean. I ask anyway. “Is Jack here?”

“He doesn't want any company,” the woman says gruffly. “He's resting. Who are you?”

“My name is Lirael. I'm seventeen,” I hear myself answer. “I'm supposed to edit his book for him.”

As if I were a robot. As if I were interviewing for a job.

“His book,” the woman says, frowning. Jack did not tell her about me. I look her over. She is wearing socks and dirty sneakers underneath her skirt. Her lipstick is a bright fuchsia color that paints her ghostly. Her hair is as white as the snow outside, her face covered in wrinkles. Everything about her is severe. I wait patiently while she goes inside and asks a question. She comes back only a moment later with the same answer: “He's very tired.”

“Okay,” I say, but I don't leave. I just stand there.

The woman sighs and goes back inside. I hear voices.
“Come back tomorrow,” she says when she returns. “He likes the mornings. He'll see you then, after— Hey!”

I push past her and enter the small apartment.

It is an open space. The kitchen, the bedroom, the sitting room; I can see them all right from the door. Almost every surface is covered with books and papers. Three typewriters sit in one corner; a couple of broken tables, in another. I look around and see stories I know. The stain on the wall from a bottle of ink that Jack decided to leave because it looked like a bird. The broken typewriters all happened during a particularly frustrating time of writer's block, after which Jack realized that they weren't exactly cheap to replace. So he moved on to tables. “I've broken about ten now
,
” he told me once. “Tables are good for bad tempers and firewood, and that's about it.” But I have never really seen his bad temper, not the kind that breaks anything.

He doesn't show it to me now from where, covered in a blanket, he is sitting in front of the television. He doesn't even look my way. I storm over, my hands fisting at my sides. “I thought you were dead,” I say, embarrassed to hear the relief in my voice. “I waited and waited for you today.”

The woman stands by the door, still trying to decide what to do with me.

Jack stares at the television without moving. “And you came all the way over here? I'm touched.”

He is thinner, paler, skin drooping beneath his eyes.

“Look,” the woman says, walking toward me. Her cheeks are splotchy. “You
cannot
just barge into other people's homes like this. This man needs his rest. If you do not leave now, I am going to have to call the police.”

I look at Jack, waiting for him to tell her he knows me. Jack keeps watching the television, as if I am not here. It is only when the woman walks to the corner of the room and picks up the phone that he croaks out, “Brenda, it's fine. This is Lirael.”

Brenda does not look happy as she hangs up the phone. She still eyes me with suspicion as she returns to the table and picks up her knitting again.

“Aren't you going to finish your story?” I ask, standing in front of the television screen. “What about the rest of it?”

“It's finished,” he says.

“Good. Show it to me.”

But he doesn't respond. I search for the pages myself. I know what I must look like, rummaging around a house that does not belong to me, papers flying about everywhere.

“Now, look here,” Brenda begins again, picking up after me. “You cannot just come in here.”

But I ignore her.

I find nothing. Not a single page. There is no story. Or maybe, after all his hard work, he burned them. It seems like the kind of foolish, poetic thing Jack would do. I am exhausted when I finally give up. Jack turns up the volume on the television and yawns. But all I can see is the way his hands shake. How long have they been that way? Why didn't I notice?

He balks when I make my way over to him, pushes my hand away, and says, “Look, this is unnecessary. I finally understand what I am to you. I picked the wrong girl. You can go now and I swear I won't hold it against you.”

I swallow. “Jack,” I say.

“Don't apologize. I don't want your lies. If you won't tell me the truth, then I don't want you here.” I have never heard him like this, never seen him like this. All bones, all skin, nothing in between. No smile, no wise words, not even hurt. Just anger. Just coldness.

I rack my mind and search for a truth to offer him.

“You look terrible,” I admit quietly. “Worse than you've ever been.”

He nods, and I sit down next to him. I turn around and find Brenda still glaring at me. I cannot tell whether she is a sleeper or not, whether she will report this, but I don't care.

We watch the television for an hour. I don't know how I manage to close my eyes and fall asleep, but when I open them again, the woman is wearing her coat.

“Jack?” she says, coming to stand in front of him. Her voice is loud and no-nonsense.

“I haven't gone deaf yet, Brenda,” Jack says, wincing.

She puts her knitting inside her bag. “I'll be back soon. I'm going to buy some more wool.” She doesn't wait for an answer. It's probably the first chance she's had to leave today, and she has decided that I am good enough to look after him until she returns.

“Who is she?” I ask, once she is gone.

“Retired nurse,” Jack says. “She lives on the floor below. She basically comes here every day and knits and makes my life hell, and I pay her a fortune for it.”

I stretch out on Jack's sofa, pretend not to notice the way he frowns at me. “What brought you back?” he says finally.

I want to tell him a lie. But instead it's the simple truth that leaks from my lips. “I missed being your friend,” I say.

Jack's eyes widen. I look down, and he fiddles with his hands. We don't talk like this; at least I don't. “That scare you?” he asks.

I shrug, try to seem careless. “Everyone that matters to me dies, it seems.”

“Everyone dies anyway.”

I look away, but he leans forward. At first, when he whispers, I think he's forgiving me, but the only word I catch is
bug
. My eyes scan the room, and Jack gestures to his cupboards and a large clock on the wall behind his television.
There are three of them,
he mouths. I nod to show that I understand. When sleepers die slowly, they have to be watched. The things they say to other people matter. The people they say them to matter. By unspoken agreement I help Jack into his wheelchair and take him into the bathroom. It is so small that there is barely any room. I turn on the taps, do a quick check, and find nothing, and then I settle in the bathtub.

He watches me in that horrible way he does when he's reading me. All the things I won't say.

“So, what's wrong with you?” he says finally.

“It's like you said,” I say. “I can't feel anything.”

“Bullshit. It is impossible to turn humanity off. They might have been able to program you to know how to care less, but you have to choose to do it. Only you can choose who you are. What happened with your grandfather, Lirael? That was the night you changed.”

“He died.”

“How?”

“I told you. He fought his alternate.”

“And you loved him so much that you couldn't bear it, so you decided the best thing to do was to ignore me for a year? I thought we were friends.”

He waits for an explanation I don't have. I shake Da's face away. More than anything in the world I suddenly want to make Jack happy, and talking about Da will do the opposite.

“There's something I've never told you about myself,” I say, changing the subject. I lean back against the bathtub, make myself as comfortable as possible. “I used to have other friends. Just before I met you.”

“Used to?” Jack says.

“I broke up with them.”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course you did.”

“They were sleepers. You would have liked them. They thought it was a good idea to do a bunch of stupid, dangerous things. All the things we shouldn't do.”

Jack smiles for the first time today. “Is that so? Tell me everything.”

So I tell him in the loosest terms I can manage. About the
friends I had well over a year ago. I do not mention traitors or fires or even the way I abandoned them after they told me their plans. I make up stories about the things we did together, but all of them based on some kind of truth. I tell him that we spent every secret moment we could doing silly things. Baking a cake that didn't rise because we forgot the baking powder, and then about another time we burned an entire box of waffles before we finally understood that our cooking skills were subpar at best.

In the evenings Edith and I would sometimes shrug out of our clothes and run around the backyard in our underthings, even in the freezing cold just because it felt good to go back inside and feel warm. The farm was so isolated no one could hear us when we screamed, but mostly we sang. Back at the cottages everyone knew Edith liked to sing, but in the farmhouse her voice had matured into something else. Something throaty and poignant. Julia and I were planning on secretly recording her one day. But then it ended. I left.

And now Edith is dead. But I don't say that.

Jack's face is wistful when I finish, and his cracked lips are starting to bleed. I climb out of the bathtub, put my cupped hands under the running tap, and hold them out to him
quickly. He sips, and I do this three more times. “Do you miss them?” he asks.

“I don't want to talk about that part.” I look down at my hands. “You said you wanted me to tell you the truth.”

He hesitates, but he recovers quickly. “Do you want some advice on keeping friends? Since you don't seem to be any good at it?”

“Gee, thanks, Jack,” I say, but this time I cover my mouth with my hands to hide the twitching of my lips. Right now, in this moment, I decide to let Jack become one of my mistakes. No matter what happens I won't run away, I won't ignore him, not ever again. I will be here until the day he dies, and when that happens, I will even let him break a heart I'm not sure I truly have.

Jack heaves an exaggerated sigh, presses his shaking hands to his knees. “It's just like you to take a dying man's best advice for granted, Lirael.”

I say, “I don't know any such men.”