Whispers in Autumn (25 page)

Lucas nods, studying the winking lights smeared across the midnight sky. Finally he lets out a relived chirp. “I’ve got it. If we keep Regulus in front of us, we should go the right way, and straight, too.

“You’re a genius. Let’s grab some waters and get moving.”

We find the huge tree without any trouble and I squat down to retrieve the items Lucas stowed in the trunk last night. A squeak emits from inside and I pull my hand back, but not fast enough. A furry black-and-white animal runs through a wet, cloudy stench and escapes into the blackness.

My eyes sting and water as a racking cough rattles my lungs. Fire licks its way down my throat, burning pain searing the tender tissue.

This is it. I’m going to die.

Lucas runs to my side and kneels on the wet earth, holding a hand over his nose and mouth as he inspects me. The coughing subsides and he hands me a water bottle out of the now unoccupied tree trunk. I pour the clear liquid over my face, and use a blanket to gently rub it around my burning eyes. After several minutes my eyes and throat have recovered, but the stink clinging to me isn’t fading, not a single bit.

I’ve never, ever smelled anything like what that thing sprayed on me. I’ve never heard of such an animal, don’t know what it’s called, but I wish it would come back so I could kick it. It gives me none of the warm fuzzies offered by last night’s deer encounter.

Lucas watches my self-cleansing from a few feet away, his eyes sparkling and merry. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, what, you think this is funny? What if it kills me!?”

Lucas dissolves into laughter, working hard to stay on his feet. I get up, snatch another water bottle, and crash through the brush.

He catches up but keeps his distance. “I’m sorry, Althea. It’s not funny.” He has to wait until his stupid grin is under control before continuing. “I’m sure you won’t die, but if you’re worried let’s go back.”

“We can’t go back. The woman is only going to be there one more day. If I’m going to die from animal poisoning, I’d rather do it out here, anyway.”

Lucas speeds up and leads the way, staying a step or two ahead of me. “Sorry. Gotta stay upwind.”

He settles down after about a half an hour and I forgive him for laughing. Now that it appears I’m not going to keel over dead, I suppose there is humor in the situation. It would be a lot funnier if it had happened to him, though.

This makes two animals we’ve encountered, and neither one tried to kill us. In fact, they both exhibited fear—the deer running and the little furball tonight spraying me with his foul odor in order to escape. My opinion continues to change, little by little, experience by experience. These animals, so free and wild and uncontained, seem to be doing nothing more than living their lives. I even forgive Stinky. I must look pretty scary to him.

If we opened the boundary, they’d probably choose not to come in.

The Others’ determination to separate the uncontrollable speaks volumes about what they might do to Lucas and me, two creatures also outside their influence in so many ways.

“Althea, what else do you think we can control?”

“What?”

He sighs, exasperated at my lack of attention. “You know, we can control hot and cold. We can get around the veils or whatever controls human minds. I was just thinking…what if we could stop traveling? Or only do it when we want to?”

The idea swishes into the recesses of my mind, forcing me to look at my life in a different way, a way in which I’m in control of what happens to me. Not traveling at all would be my first choice, but if we could do it ourselves we could get out of autumn, escape Deshi and the Wardens and our interviews. My shoulders sag at a memory. “The day after the Gathering, Sarah’s father said Wardens were at the Upper Cells in all of the places we travel. We can’t get away. Besides, traveling has hidden us before because they’ve never been aware of us. But Deshi’s an Other and he certainly isn’t going to forget about us if we disappear. If anything it will prove beyond all doubt that we’re worth looking for.”

“But as a last resort, maybe. We can’t avoid them forever, but jumping seasons could buy us some time.”

“You think we could do it the same way we use the hot and cold—by focusing our emotions and pushing?”

“The big problem is figuring out how to stay together when we try it. I mean, we could pool our emotions together maybe, if we were touching.”

The suggestion immediately makes me wary. “We might hurt each other.”

“Especially you, with those fire hands.”

“Funny.”

We walk on, checking the sky every ten minutes or so to maintain our direction. My watch says twelve-thirty when Lucas stops, stretching out an arm to block my path. Up ahead, lights filter through the forest.

We creep forward, taking care to make as little noise as possible, and stop at the edge of the clearing. A small clapboard building rests in the center, spotlights directed outward on all four sides. No sound or movement suggests anyone is around and no lights glow in the windows.

Lucas pulls me back into the trees, pushing a finger against his lips as he gags at my nearness. Worry tinges my excitement and adrenaline pumps through my blood. His breathing and the pounding of my heart fill the silence, but nothing else. Then I hear what Lucas does. Squishing noises like the ones our footsteps make in the leaves.

Coal black eyes poke around a thick tree and the terror abates. It’s not some version of threatening wildlife, but her. The Other we trekked out here to find.

“Hi.” Pleasure fills her eyes, now the color of midnight. “It is so nice to see you two together, I…
what
is that smell?”

She leans toward me and takes a delicate sniff before retreating several steps and laughing, a tinkling sound more pleasant than anything I’ve ever heard. She reaches out to Lucas but he pulls back, closer to me.

The not-Other sighs. “I’m happy you decided to come. It’s good you don’t trust me; Ko did an excellent job with those notes. If you’ll come inside we can talk.”

A squeak slips through my lips and Lucas’s breath slides out of his lungs in a gurgle. She
is
connected to Ko.

“Who are you?” Lucas demands.

“A friend to Ko. And a friend to you, whether you know it or not. I’m Cadi.”

Enticing us out here could be a trick, but in all honesty, that doesn’t make much sense. The Others have incredible technology and mental capabilities at their fingertips. If they did know for sure Lucas and I are the ones they’re looking for, they’d just come and take us. They can change everyone’s memory back to normal afterward and it will be as if we never existed at all.

Jitters bounce through my insides, half excited, half nervous. The woman, Cadi, starts toward the little building, and I meet Lucas’s eye.

He shrugs. “This is why we walked all the way out here. You ready?”

“We don’t have to trust her all the way yet, right?”

Lucas’s face tightens before he gives a curt shake of the head. “No way. Let’s just see how we feel after we talk to her.”

He takes my hand and we step into the clearing.

Cadi glances back and a small smile tugs at the corners of her pink lips. “I must say, I’m impressed the two of you have the nerve to leave the city boundary.”

Pride fills her voice and my curiosity grows. Anticipation speeds my heart at the prospect of learning more about my life. A million questions infuse my thoughts and fight to get out of my mouth first, but caution still holds me back.

She stops at the front door and faces us. “Why don’t we go inside and get you cleaned up, Althea. That smell is impossible. Lucas, if you don’t mind, please turn around and close your eyes while she gets out of those clothes. I’ll come back and get you once she’s soaking.”

Lucas hesitates and I know he’s worried about losing sight of me. Normally I’d agree with him, but cleaning this stench off is worth a small risk, an opinion I communicate to him with a look.

Cadi notices our silent conversation and smiles. Lucas walks ten paces away and turns his back. I strip off all four layers of clothes, my limbs trembling more and more violently each piece I remove. Bumps decorate my pale skin and my teeth chatter. When nothing but my bra and underwear remain, Cadi tosses the rest in a pile, takes my hand, and leads me inside. My thoughts are frozen into a complete blank.

We pass a small living area and an even smaller kitchen before entering a mint green tiled cleansing room. A huge, white basin with clawed feet takes up more than a quarter of the room. Candles flicker on the edge of the tub and sink, casting shimmying shadows on the walls.

Cadi leans over and turns on the water, plugging the bottom when the liquid starts to steam. “This part is going to be unpleasant, I’m afraid, but that smell isn’t easy to get rid of.”

“Do you know what did this to me?”

“It’s called a skunk. Scared little things, really. Nearly sightless but they have a good defense mechanism, wouldn’t you agree?” She raises an eyebrow at me, humor lighting her face.

“Sure,” I respond dryly. “Am I going to die?”

“No. Goodness, how I hate what the Others have done to this planet. Let’s go out back.”

“Out back? Why?” The thought of going outside, into the freezing wind, hurts my head.

“I need to hose you off and scrub you down with a solution that will break down the scent.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about and honestly don’t care. If it will get rid of the smell, fine. I follow her out of the cleansing room, casting a longing look at the steaming water, and try to prepare myself.

Ten minutes later icy water droplets cling to every inch of me as Cadi leads me back inside. A glimpse in the mirror reveals blue lips and frozen strands of hair. I strip the rest of the way and sink into the tub. Steaming water stings my frosty skin at first, but feels better than just about anything, ever.

“Let me get Lucas settled and I’ll be back.” She leaves with my soaking undergarments pinched between two fingers.

My eyes slip closed in the darkness. It’s so quiet, so peaceful, and for the first time since I lay on the forest floor I don’t feel as though someone is watching me. My chin rests atop the bubbles and my mind shuts off, thankful to have a break. Glowing yellow patterns flicker on the tiles. I just breathe in the solitude. In. Out. In.

The door opens again and Cadi slips in. She kneels at the end of the basin by my head. She’s changed into lounge clothes, a pale green pair of pants and a matching top. She grabs a couple of bottles from under the sink and squirts shampoo into her palm. “You have questions, Althea?”

Only about a million.

Cadi rubs the fragrant suds into my hair and kneads my scalp. She works on me in silence for several seconds. There are an infinite number of questions but few that Lucas won’t want to hear, too. My brow scrunches and I nibble on the tips of my fingers as she finishes with my hair and moves on to my back. No one has ever taken the time to pay attention to me, to take care of me. I don’t know Cadi at all, but I let her do it. A feeling of protection fills the room, as though this little cabin offers safe harbor.

It’s silly to feel that way. It’s an Other facility in the middle of nowhere.

It’s Cadi that’s making me feel like this, not the building. She and Ko are strange that way.

“What are you if you’re not an Other?”

“What am I? All this time in the dark about you and your question is about me?”

The words choke off at the end and I twist to look at her face. Water floods her midnight eyes and she looks at me like the people in my dreams do. Whatever she and Ko are, they do care about us. She couldn’t fake the raw, jagged emotion written all over her. But why?

“What’s the water in your eyes called? I get it, too, and Lucas has had it before, but no one else does.”

“The humans call them tears. And they all have them, but tears are brought on by emotion. When they come it’s called crying, or weeping. It’s how everyone would purge feelings naturally, if they could.”

“Tears.” I try out the word, happy to have a name for the water and also, a definition for one of the words in Lucas’s strange, haunting booklet. I examine my fingertips, wrinkled and pink from the water, and take the washcloth from Cadi. Even though my clothes absorbed much of the smell, I’m not ready to get out of the water just yet. “So, what are you?”

She seems to think about it for a minute. “The gulf between our languages is vast. Your vocabulary is quite limiting.”

“Hey!”

She shrugs. “It is not your fault, Althea. The Others have nothing to gain and much to lose from teaching language or history.” She searches her mind for another few minutes while I practice using my patience. “I am an Augur. It is the closest definition. I am not wholly Other, nor am I human. My forebearers were from a planet called Sprita. We had one primary emotion—love. Our planet is…
was
peaceful, full of respect and happiness. When the Others arrived, no one stood against them; fighting is not in our nature. We welcomed them, offered them sanctuary. The Others spent many years on Sprita before moving on. No one survived their habitation except those they took with them when they left.”

“They took you with them,” I squeak out. Greg asking what happens to the Others’ hosts hops out of my memory. This is almost worse than no one surviving.

“Some of us, yes. My people have specific abilities the Others wished to copy. They took a dozen of our women when they left and extracted genetic material. Experimented with controlling the genes they wished for themselves. It worked, to an extent. I am an example. So is Ko.” A ghostly smile haunts her face. “We are not the first to be taken. Or the last. Many species do not survive the aggressive gene manipulation. Or do not behave as intended.”

A shudder of what looks like revulsion wracks her tiny frame. I’m unwilling to push her on what is obviously a distressing point. The hot water turns lukewarm and I want to get out anyway, to return to Lucas. “Cadi, why are you and Ko helping us?”

She watches me through sad, resigned eyes. “You remember what I told you about Sprita? We wish a different outcome for Earth. You could be the answer.”