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“Eli!” I call out.
“I’m right here!”
“Where’s Vick?”
“He wanted to get in a couple of hours of fishing before we left,” Eli says. “He told me to stay behind and to let you sleep. ”
“No, no, no,” I say, and then neither of us says anything more, because the sound of the machines overhead is too loud. The firing sounds different, too. Heavy and ponderous. Precise. Not the scatter of rain we are used to. This sounds like hailstones as big as boulders pounding from the sky.
When it stops, I don’t wait even though I should. “Stay here,” I tell Eli, and I run out to the plain, start crawling through the grass, heading for that damn stream, that damn marsh.
But Eli follows me, and I let him. I crawl to that place on the bank and then I don’t look.
I believe what I see. So if I don’t see Vick dead it won’t be true.
Instead I look at the stream where something has exploded. Brown and green marsh grasses are partly hidden beneath the dirt like the long tangled hair of bodies pulled under.
The force of the explosion has thrown earth into the stream and dammed it. Turned it into pools. Little pieces of river with nowhere to run.
I walk a few strides downstream, far enough to see that they’ve done it again and again and again all along the length of the river.
I hear the sound of Eli sobbing.
Then I turn and look at Vick.
“Ky,” Eli says. “Can you help him?”
“No,” I say.
Whatever fell hit with such impact that it looks like it sent Vick flying; his neck was broken. He must have died instantly. I know I should be glad for that. But I’m not. I look at those empty eyes that reflect back the blue of the sky because there is nothing left of Vick himself.
What drew him out here? Why didn’t he fish under the cover of the trees instead of in this open place?
I see the reason in the pool near him, trapped in the newly stilled water. I know instantly what kind of fish it is though I’ve never seen one before.
A rainbow. Its colors flash in the light as it struggles.
Did Vick see it? Is that why he came out into the open?
The pool grows darker. Something, a large round sphere, sits at the bottom of the water. As I look closer, I see that the sphere lets off a slow release of toxin.
They didn’t mean to kill Vick. They do mean to kill this stream.
As I watch the rainbow turns over, its white belly up. It rises to the surface.
Dead like Vick.
I want to laugh and scream at the same time.
“He had something in his hand,” Eli says. I look at him. He has the piece of wood carved with Laney’s name. “It fell when he did. ” Eli reaches for Vick’s hand and holds it for a moment. Then he crosses Vick’s arms across his chest. “Do something,” Eli tells me with tears streaming down his face.
I turn away and tear off my coat.
“What are you doing?” Eli asks in horror. “You can’t leave him like this. ”
I don’t have time to answer. I throw my coat to the ground and plunge my hands into the nearest pool of water—the one with the dead rainbow. The cold hurts. Moving water rarely freezes, but this water isn’t moving anymore. Using both hands, I hoist the sphere out while it keeps spewing poison. It’s heavy, but I run it over to the side, put it near a rock, and start looking for the next one. I can’t clear all the dirt that has exploded, blocking the river in many places, but I can take the poison out of some of the pools. I know this is as futile as everything I’ve done. Like trying to get back to Cassia in a Society that wants me dead.
But I can’t stop.
Eli comes over and reaches into the water too.
“It’s too dangerous,” I tell him. “Get back in the trees. ”
He doesn’t answer but instead helps me lift out the next sphere. I remember Vick helping me with the bodies and I let Eli stay.
All day long, Vick talks to me. I know it means I’m crazy but I can’t help hearing him.
He talks to me while Eli and I pull spheres from the stream. Over and over Vick tells me his story about Laney. I picture it in my mind—him falling in love with an Anomaly. Telling Laney how he felt. Watching the rainbow and going to speak with her parents. Standing up to celebrate a Contract. Smiling as he reached for her hand to claim happiness in spite of the Society. Coming back to find her gone.
“Stop it,” I say to Vick. I ignore Eli’s look of surprise. I’m turning into my father. He always heard voices in his head, telling him to talk to the people, to try to change the world.
When we’ve cleared as many spheres as we can, Eli and I dig Vick’s grave together. It’s hard going, even with the loose ground, and my muscles scream in exhaustion and the grave isn’t as deep as I would like. Eli works doggedly next to me, his small hands scooping out earth.
When we finish, we put Vick inside.
He’d emptied out one of his packs at our camp and brought it with him to carry his catch. I find one silver-scaled fish dead inside and I put it in the grave too. We leave Vick’s coat on him. The hole over his heart where the silver disk once was looks like a small wound. If the Society digs him up, they won’t know anything about him. Even the notches in his boots mean something that they won’t understand.
Vick keeps talking to me while I carve a piece of sandstone into a fish to leave on his shallow grave. The fish’s scales are dull and orange. A rainbow without all the colors. Not real like the one Vick saw. But the best I can do. I want it to mark not only that he died but that he loved someone and she loved him back.
“They didn’t kill me,” Vick says to me.
“No?” I say, but I say it quiet so that Eli can’t hear me.
“No,” he says with a grin. “Not as long as the fish are still around, still swimming, spawning, laying eggs. ”
“Can’t you see this place?” I ask Vick. “We tried. But they’re going to die, too. ”
And then he stops talking to me and I know that he’s really gone and I wish for a voice in my head again. I finally understand that as long as my father had that, he never had to be alone.
Chapter 20
CASSIA
My breathing sounds wrong. Like little waves of a stream lapping up against rock and making small tired sounds, hoping to wear away at the stone.
“Talk to me,” I say to Indie. I notice she carries two packs, two canteens. How did that happen? Are they mine? I’m too tired to care.
