I carry the trays up the winding stairs into her room and I sit on the edge of her bed and I stare out the window into the storm-buffeted ocean, eating the food I prepared for her.
There’s no way Catcher will make it through the night. I know this as well as I know that there will never be a world without the Mudo. I feel hollow when I think of him. More than hollow.
Catcher will die alone. In an empty room and in an empty city. He’s the first and only boy I thought I could love, the first one who saw something in me worthy of attention. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to find anyone like him again—someone I’ve known for so long that trusting him feels like breathing.
A knock sounds at the door and I drop the tea I’ve been cradling. The scalding liquid splashes down my leg, the mug shattering on the floor.
I can already see the knob turning, can hear my name on their lips. I jump to the door, press my body against it and then ease my way through a small crack, closing it behind me. I try not to show that my leg stings from the burning water. My upper lip is already sweating with the effort of appearing relaxed and casual.
It’s Daniel, and I try to force out a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. He doesn’t step back to allow me to pass and so I’m crushed against the door. I can’t open it to give us space or he’ll see my mother’s empty bed and will know she’s not here.
“How’s your mother?” he asks, pretending he’s just being polite.
“She’s resting,” I tell him, willing him to believe my lie. I feel off center up here alone with him, and unable to figure out why he’s so intent on where my mother is. “All this noise, it hasn’t been good for her.”
He looks over my shoulder as if he’s hoping to be able to see through the wood. He nods. “I’m sure,” he says unconvincingly.
He doesn’t move and I’m afraid to leave him here alone. Afraid of his obvious suspicion. “The others,” I say, trying to appear calm and as though I’m not afraid of him. “They’ll be wondering where we are. The coffee must be low, I should go tend to it.”
Daniel smiles at me then, as if he’s indulging my whims. “Okay, Gabrielle,” he says. He stands there a moment longer, the air too heavy around us both. I can smell the beach on him, smell the Mudo. The scent tears at my throat, sinks into my stomach, and I feel sick. I want to shove him away, to tell him to leave me alone. But instead I just clench my hands by my sides.
Finally he turns and walks slowly down the stairs, leaving me gasping on the landing as if I’d never breathed before, my fists shaking and my fingers numb.
Even though the sky clears that evening, the swollen waves still toss the Mudo against the shore, their bloated bodies like lost mounds on the beach. And so the Militiamen continue in their shifts, their pace less frantic but still as intense.
The lighthouse feels too close, too warm with all the men staying there. With Daniel and his glances and glares. I try to escape outside but they’re there as well. Walking the length of the shore, their axes and sickles ready for the next body. As the light hazes they gather wood and try to light fires that struggle to ignite and then pop and crackle, throwing weak halos onto the sand.
I escape upstairs, excusing myself to tend to the lamp. I coax it to life, wind the gears but don’t set it spinning just yet. I stare at the light wondering if Catcher will be alive to see it. Wondering if my mother will look for it on the horizon. Does anyone still care anymore about me and this light?
I drop the sliver of wood I used to light the lamp, its small flame fluttering through the air until it falls as a burning red ember. I’ve taken over my mother’s life, I realize. And suddenly I imagine my entire existence unfolding in front of me, ruled by the chimes announcing the tides, measured by spins of the lamp.
I see it all: waves crashing and stretching, the sun swapping with the moon, blazing the horizon orange over and over again. The Forest tangles over the fences that are too old and too endless to maintain. The ruins crumble to nothing more than rubble, the coaster finally giving way to gravity as Vista gasps and chokes and tries to hold on until one day the lighthouse gears grind to a halt, no supplies from before the Return left to repair them. The Protectorate abandons the useless town that fades, forgotten, into the future.
And during all of it, at every tide, I’m here: standing alone on the gallery and waiting. For my mother, for the hope of Catcher and Cira. Every dusk I light the lamp that no one follows. Every high tide I decapitate the people-who-used-to-be—people like Catcher and Mellie—and I am safe and alone and old.
And there’s no one waiting for me, no one who knows me. No one to share my life and experiences with. It’s me and the ocean, the tides and the lighthouse and wave after wave folding time to the shore. Unlike Roger, there is no Mary to wash upon the beach. Unlike my mother, there’s no child to rescue from the Forest.
And now I understand what drove my mother back into the Forest, only to find me. What made her keep me to stave off the endless empty horizon. What made her want to forget and ultimately what caused her to remember.
I’m suddenly aware of how little I know about my mother’s time before me. I know she’s from the Forest. I know she left her village, fought her way to the ocean. I know she’s stronger than I could ever hope to be. That she created this life to raise me in the safety that she never felt growing up.
I know my mother loved but I don’t know what it felt like, other than that it caused her to want to forget. I know she left Vista at some point—traveled to the Dark City and beyond—and yet something drew her back. But what about her dreams? What have I ever known about those?
It’s as though my blood has reversed its flow and runs backward through my body, I feel so keenly the loss of my mother in that instant. I want to crawl to her and have her tell me that it will be okay. That I’ll always be safe.
I want her to tell me that even though the world can change course in a week, it will always keep spinning and turning.
I trace my fingers over the gears of the lantern, the greasy teeth sliding sharp under my touch. I think about all the times my mother’s hands rested here as she looked out into the world.
I realize now that I have my own decision to make: I can accept what I see. I can set the lamp to spinning tonight and every night after, safe within the barriers I’ve constructed around myself.
Or I can risk everything: run for Catcher and take of his last moments what I can. Open myself up to the possibility of failure and pain.
I stare at the rain gasping against the windows of the lantern room. I think about how different my life would be if I never crossed the Barrier that night. If when I sat on top of that wall with Catcher I’d pulled him back.
I wish I were stronger. I wish I were my mother. But I’m not. I set the light spinning, the harsh light blinding me with every turn, my heartbeat thumping with it.
The Militiamen leave early the next morning. The beach is pristine, the sand smooth and clear. The waves are like ripples in a bowl of water. As if the world has not raged for the past two days.
It’s always the strangest after a storm; how the world can be so dark and wind-whipped one moment, tossing Mudo endlessly ashore, and the next it’s as if the Mudo never existed. As if the world spun backward in time to the pre-Return days.
I go and stand at the water’s edge, let the saltiness lick at my toes. I think of walking into the tide, of just putting one foot in front of the other until it consumes me. I can see flutters against the surface at the surf line and I know the calm is just a mirage, that Mudo still tumble out in the depths.
The enormity of my decision last night crashes over me, the length and breadth of my life alone. I realize that I just want something to take into that solitude to hang on to: one last kiss from Catcher. One last embrace from Cira. Something to remind me that I could be loved, I could be a friend if I were willing to take the risk.
And then I start running. Away from the shore, through the fence and over the dunes. I sprint up the path through the woods, the air under the trees thick and humid. Once I reach the town I cut around the edge, everything a blur as I weave toward where Cira’s being kept.
But I’m fighting against streams of people pouring from their houses and thronging toward the Barrier. They swell around me, the current too strong to resist and I’m carried along with them toward the main gate.
The Militia, some of whom were up all night at the lighthouse working on the beach, stand along the Barrier, tall and proud in their black uniforms. Their expressions are so sedate, so rigid and unblinking as they stand at attention, that it’s hard to remember how they were over the past few days: dripping with rain, raucous as they shared bawdy jokes, telling tales of their kills. I pull strands of hair from my braid and let it fall into my face, hoping to avoid making eye contact with any of them. Hoping to somehow stay beyond their reach.
Everyone’s there, the entire town shuffling and mumbling. And when the bell rings three times everyone hushes. The gate groans open. And the crowd cheers. I walk forward slowly and it’s as though no one can see me. As if I’m nothing to them. I hear the thump of a drum, the blare of a horn.
The familiar sound hits deep in my stomach. The march of the Protectorate, the tune we’re taught as children and sing every morning before classes. My lips move automatically, the words rote. And I find myself singing along as the Recruiters march into town.
Chapter 20
While everyone else celebrates the arrival of the Recruiters, I slip away from the crowd and into the basement of the Council House to visit Cira before they take her away. She sits on a bench tucked into a corner with her knees pulled up to her chest, her cheek resting on them. She’s thin and drained and I can already tell she’s given up. Seeing her so small and scared, I can’t believe she could be the same girl from the river. The girl who was willing to do anything. Who was so brave and bold in the face of everything in our world.
I want to grab her hands and drag her to the river and throw her in. I want her to remember her own strength. I want to ask her how I’m supposed to believe in superheroes if she won’t believe in herself.
I clutch the figurine she gave me under my shirt. Most of all I want her to promise me that she’ll stay alive and fight.
Finally she sees me and her eyes light up. When she gets closer she slips her hands around the bars and I wrap my hands over hers. “Catcher?” she whispers.
I drop my gaze to the ground, wishing I could somehow avoid this conversation. Not wanting to heap any more pain on her. I don’t know how to tell her I’ve failed them both.
I shake my head and I can see everything crumble inside her. I squeeze her wrist tightly but it’s a useless gesture. She’s not the same. Her eyes are dim and dull.
“Cira,” I hiss through my teeth. “Cira, look at me!” I’m desperate to find some way to help her, to give her something to hold on to.
She barely focuses on me. It’s as if she’s underwater, being dragged down into the depths by the Mudo, but she’s not even struggling.
“You can’t give up,” I tell her. I think back on all we’ve been through together, all the times she’s been the strong one. The person I wanted to be. I don’t know how to bring that back in her and it makes me feel useless.
When she talks she barely moves her lips, as if even that isn’t worth the effort. “Why not?” she asks. “Why bother with it anymore?”
I open my mouth to protest but I see a small spark ignite in her eye, an ember of who I know she can be.
“No, really, Gabry. Tell me what’s worth it. Tell me what we’re doing just barely clinging on here. Why? Tell me what’s the difference between you or me and the Mudo?”
“The Recruiters isn’t a death sentence,” I tell her, echoing the words that Elias said to me only a few days ago.
“He really liked you, you know?” she says, and for a moment I’m confused, Elias still flooding my mind and heat straining up my neck. “He used to talk about you all the time. Ever since we first met you that day at the lighthouse.” She pauses. “We would have been sisters.”
Pain sears at my chest, thoughts of Catcher and what could have been flashing through my mind.
“I wish I could take it back,” I tell her. “I wish I could go back to that night and stop us from climbing the Barrier.”
She shrugs one shoulder and lets it fall. “I used to think that,” she says. “When they first caught us I thought that. But now I don’t know.” She looks around at the others pressed against the bars. At the families being torn apart. “Sometimes I think it’s just inevitable.”
A thousand protests come to my lips but she presses a finger against them before I can say anything. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
She smiles. “You know, I like to think of you out there, standing in the lighthouse. I like to think that I’ll be able to see it from wherever they send us. That I’ll see that flash of light on the horizon and I’ll think about you and Catcher and that maybe it will make fighting that stupid war worth it.”
I can feel my cheeks flush. “It’s not fair that I’m out here,” I tell her, my heart thudding at the words but knowing I have to say this. “I should be in there with you; I should go with you—”
She cuts me off. “Someone has to stay behind,” she says.
I pull the superhero figurine from around my neck and pass it to her. “Please don’t give up,” I tell her again.
She looks at it dangling from my fingers. “There’s no such thing as heroes,” she says, pushing the necklace back at me. “Not anymore.”