Page 3 of Juniper Unraveling

I look over the rail at where there’s a line of boys—some older, some very young, like Abel, making their way down the spiraling stairwell of our apartments, the occasional black uniform breaking up the familiar faces I’ve grown up with.

We step outside into the light and are forced shoulder-to-shoulder, until standing in a straight line. As I turn my head to the left, then right, I notice I’m the only girl in line. Every head sporting a short crop belongs to a boy, or a man.

Abel is set before me, and he clutches my leg, the rabbit still dangling from his arm.

Across the road from us, another line up of boys, perhaps fifteen in total, mirror us. Every one of them looking bewildered and out of place.

I know there’s an alley behind me that butts up to a fence, with a hole and the ruins of a city on the other side. Used to be Las Vegas. Now it’s just a pile of cinder and rubble that my friends and I sometimes like to explore. I could make a run for it, but Abel could never keep up, and it’d slow me down trying to carry him.

Commotion from the left snaps my attention in the direction of Thomas, a boy from my school, doing that very thing. My muscles burn with the urge to follow him, and I have to squeeze Abel’s arm to keep from breaking out of line.

A pop freezes me in place, though. That god-awful sound that will forever terrify me, and I turn to find Thomas sprawled on the pavement in the alley with the red river of death flowing from his head.

He was my age.

Only fourteen.

He stuttered in class and was afraid to play kickball with the boys at recess, so he often sat on the swings with my best friend, Kiara, and me, who I’m guessing is dead, unless her mother shaved her head, too. They called him a coward in school, but today, I think he’s the bravest boy I’ve ever known, because I surely don’t have the courage to run now.

His death summons a low hum of mumbles. Some of the other boys even sob for him.

The cold sensation that long settled over me ices my muscles, so I can’t so much as blink, let alone cry. My surroundings have flipped into a dream, and my head won’t let me believe it’s real.

None of this is real.

When I face forward again, one of the men in black suits is standing before me, staring at me. He tips his head, and a gloved hand reaches for my chin. Gripping either side of my face, he guides my head left then right, examining me. In spite of the branching cold inside my veins, my hands are sweaty. Alarms blare inside my thoughts, warning me that he’s going to know I’m a girl, and I’ll be lying in a river of blood, just like Thomas. And my mother.

Seconds tick off inside my mind as I wait for him to call me out as a traitor. A liar.

Instead, his hand falls away, and he circles his finger in the air.

In the next breath, he grips my shoulders, twisting me to face the back of the boy in front of me, with Abel separating us, and in a single-file line, we walk forward.

At the end of the road sits three large trucks, each covered with a deep green tarp that swallow the lines of boys into the belly of each vehicle. One of the monsters lifts Abel, who wipes his nose on Sarai’s rabbit. I hoist myself into the truck behind him, and guide him toward one of the benches lining the inside of the truck’s cab. Abel climbs onto the bench beside me and nuzzles his face in my side, lifting my arm to wrap around him. His body still shivers, but his tears have calmed to sniveling and the occasional hiccup.

On the opposite side of me sits an older man. One who looks out of place among all of the younger boys, and when he stares at me, furrowing his brow, I remember why. Instinctively, I run my hand over the stubble of hair that once reached the middle of my back. For the first time in a matter of minutes, I have the urge to cry again.

I recognize the man from the apothecary where my mother traded her herbs. I’ve always thought of him as a mean, grumpy old codger, who often argued with my mother over the uses of certain medicines.

As if any of that matters now.

The thought of my mother spurs another tug of my throat, and I keep my gaze locked on my hand resting atop the book in my lap.

“She was a fiery lady, your mother. Full of spirit and grit.” The old man’s voice draws my gaze to his, his soft tone catching me by surprise. “On to a better place, that one.”

“Where?”

“Heaven. If you believe in that sort of thing.”

Do I? Have I ever once believed my father is in heaven? As a devout Catholic, my mother believed in such things, but could I?

“Do you?”

His chest rises with a breath, and his shoulders slouch on the exhale. “I have to.”

“Why?”

“’Sgood to believe in something. Keeps you livin’, when everything else is gone.”