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“That shouldn’t have happened,” Xander says. “I’ll let Oker know. ”
“Good,” I say. Oker’s anger will carry much more weight with the village leaders than mine will.
“I’ll be back,” I tell Ky, in case he can hear. “As soon as I can. ”
Outside of the infirmary, the trees grow right up to the edge of the village buildings. Branches scrape and sing along one another when the wind comes through them. So much life here. Grasses, flowers, leaves, and people walking, talking, living.
“I’m sorry about the blue tablets,” Xander says. “I—you could have died. It would have been my fault. ”
“No,” I say. “You didn’t know. ”
“You never took one, did you?”
“Yes,” I say. “But I’m fine. I kept going. ”
“How?” he asks.
I kept going by thinking of Ky. But how can I tell Xander that? “I just did,” I say. “And the scraps in the tablets helped. ”
Xander smiles.
“The secret you mentioned on one of the scraps,” I say. “What was it?”
“I’m a part of the Rising,” Xander says.
“I thought that might be what you meant,” I say. “You told me on the port. Didn’t you? Not in words, I know, but I thought that’s what you were trying to say. . . . ”
“You’re right,” Xander says. “I did tell you. It wasn’t much of a secret. ” He grins, and then his expression sobers. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about the red tablet. ”
“I’m not immune,” I say. “It works on me. ”
“Are you sure?”
“They gave it to me in Central,” I say. “I’m certain of it. ”
“The Rising promised me that you were immune to the red tablet, and to the Plague,” Xander says.
“Then they either lied to you or made a mistake,” I say.
“That means you would have been vulnerable to the original version of the Plague,” Xander says. “Did you go down with it? Did they give you a cure?”
“No. ” I understand what’s puzzling him. “If the red tablet works on me, then I was never given the initial immunization when I was a baby. So I should have gone down sick with the original Plague. But I didn’t. I just got the mark. ”
Xander shakes his head, trying to figure it out. I am sorting through, too. “The red tablet works on me,” I say. “I’ve never taken the green. And I walked through the blue. ”
“Has anyone else ever walked through the blue?” Xander asks.
“Not that I know of,” I say. “I had Indie with me, and she
helped me keep going. That might have made a difference. ”
“What else happened in the canyons?” Xander asks.
“For a long time, I wasn’t with Ky at all,” I say. “We started in a village full of other Aberrations. Then three of us ran to the Carving; me, the boy who died, and Indie. ”
“Indie is in love with Ky,” Xander says.
“Yes,” I say. “I think she is, now. But first it was you. She used to steal things. She took my microcard and someone else’s miniport and she used to look at your face whenever she could. ”
“And in the end, it was Ky she wanted,” Xander says. I detect a note of bitterness in his voice; it’s not something I’ve heard often before.
“They flew in the same Rising camp,” I say. “She saw him all the time. ”
“You don’t seem angry at her,” Xander says.
And I’m not. There was the moment of shock and hurt when Ky said that she’d kissed him, but it vanished when Ky went still. “She makes her own way,” I say. “She does what she wants. ” I shake my head. “It’s hard to stay upset with her. ”
“I don’t understand,” Xander says.
And I don’t think he can. He doesn’t really know Indie; has never seen her lie and cheat to get what she wants, or realized how among all of that is a strange inexplicable honesty that is only hers. He didn’t see her push through the silver water and bring us to safety against the odds. He never knew how she felt about the sea or how badly she wanted a dress made of blue silk.
Some things cannot be shared. I could tell him everything that happened in the Carving and he still won’t have been there with me.
And it’s the same for him. He could tell me all about the Plague and the mutation that followed and what he saw, but I still wasn’t there.
Watching Xander’s face, I see him realize this. He swallows. He’s about to ask me something. When he does, it’s not what I expect. “Have you ever written anything for me? Besides that message, I mean. ”
“You did get it,” I say.
“All except for the end,” he says. “It got ruined. ”
My heart sinks. So he doesn’t know what I said, that I told him not to think of me anymore in that way.
“I wondered,” Xander says, “if you’d ever written a poem for me. ”
“Wait,” I say. There is no paper here, but there is a stick and dark dirt on the ground and it is, after all, how I learned to write. I hesitate for a moment, glancing back at the infirmary, but then I realize The time for keeping this to ourselves is long past. And if I tried to share it with everyone out in Central, why would I keep it from Xander?
All the same, it feels intimate to write for Xander. It means more.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to think of something, and then it comes to me, an extension of the poem with a word that made me think of Xander. I begin to write. “Xander,” I say, pausing.
