Page 36 of Storm Caller

He laughs. “I promise it’s fine.”

I’ve never eaten something straight from the ground, but he bends down, plucks another carrot from the garden, and bites into it. Now I feel silly, so I follow suit. It crunches under my teeth, exploding in my mouth with a burst of sweetness. I’ve had carrots before, hundreds of them, but this one is so full of flavor that it actually makes my teeth hurt.

“Why is it different?” I ask. “What did you do to it?”

Rook smiles, and we start walking again. “Nothing. This is just what food is supposed to taste like when it’s grown out in the open.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that, and after a moment, Rook peers back at me. “You okay?”

“It just never occurred to me that food could taste different.”

He offers me a sympathetic look. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

I guess that’s true, but it still feels like he’s being very generous.

We pass through the garden and emerge into another patch of forest. The sun is setting, and clouds gather overhead. I’m not itchy, though, so maybe the storm will clear off tonight.

“I have something else to show you,” Rook says, and we walk for about ten more minutes before we again emerge from the trees and find ourselves on a cliff overlooking a valley. It’s lush and green like a leafy emerald, spreading for miles. Blood rushes in my ears as the sun sets between a range of distant mountains, casting the entire valley in golden light.

I’m overcome by how big everything is.

It sounds strange, but after growing up bordered by the soaring towers of New Manhattan crowding me on every side, this is the first time I’ve ever stood under a vast, continuous sky with nothing surrounding me. It’s overwhelming. Crushing. Hard to breathe. It feels like I might fall through the earth and become smothered forever.

“I wanted you to see this,” Rook says. “When I was at Amery and I’d think of home, this is what I’d picture. I won’t deny the city offers a certain kind of glamorous beauty of its own, but it’s closed off. Artificial. Generated to keep you all happy and looking anywhere but out.”

He says those words carefully, as if he’s worried about offending me, but it’s at that moment I realize how right he is. I nod and approach the cliff’s edge, stopping just short of stepping off. I peer down, feeling like the world is shrinking below me, and then I look out as it expands, stretching over endless miles I can barely comprehend.

“I understand why you missed this,” I whisper. “It might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Rook comes to stand next to me. He doesn’t touch me, but I feel the warmth of his body and the way the air compresses around us. I watch his profile. The way the sinking sun highlights the contours of his straight nose and full lips. I think about all the times I’ve kissed him and how much I want to do it again.

Neither one of us says anything for a long time. We enjoy the comfortable silence—the rush of the wind, the distant hoot of an owl, and other sounds of the natural world I’ve never heard before, but some instinct rooted deep into my human DNA understands them.

I inhale deeply, my bruised ribs twinging, but it also feels like this air is literally healing me.

A tear slips down my cheek that I can’t explain. I’m overwhelmed. Overcome. Broken down and torn apart piece by piece, as every incontrovertible truth I’ve ever believed has shattered.

Rook moves closer, and I stay where I am, leaning into him. Slowly, he reaches up and tucks my hair back over my shoulder. I’m still conflicted. Still hurting from his lies, but I don’t want to be mad at him. I don’t want anything but this moment and this quiet intimacy.

As the stars emerge in the night sky, they glow so brightly and in such abundance that I can’t help but be left in complete awe. It feels like I could reach out and scoop up a handful to keep in my pocket.

I think of the tattoos on Rook’s arms. Now I truly understand them.

I remember how they’d stirred something in me that I couldn’t quite explain.

Freedom, I remind myself.

They made me think of freedom, and I’m struck by a sense of insignificance. Of how small my life has been with my entire world confined to a single strip of land.

When Trinity accused me of being a Keeper in front of everyone in New Manhattan, I thought it was an ending.

But out here, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe it was actually the beginning.

12

The next day, Rook and I linger in his room after lunch, awaiting his punishment for the death of the Whisper. He’s been very cagey about what to expect, but he’s dressed in a similar outfit to yesterday: a pair of soft gray leather pants and a sleeveless top adorned with buckles and straps. He removes his rings, gently setting them on his nightstand, and for some reason, that makes me nervous.

A knock sounds at the door, and it swings open without his invitation, revealing a boy and a girl in their mid to late teens. From their wavy black hair, high cheekbones, and straight noses, I immediately guess who they must be. Meeting Rook’s parents was terrifying in its own right, but I suspect his siblings won’t hold anything back.