His eyes rise to mine and they are balanced and steady and filled with resolve. “I’m better than that. I’ll make good. I will.”
I give a quick nod, our eyes never breaking contact. It’s taken over a week, but Epap and I have finally had our first real interaction.
“Something’s got you spooked about this place,” he says. His eyes turn hard with self-reproach. “What have I been missing?”
“There are things I just learned. And which you definitely should know.” I flick my chin toward the room. “But let’s go inside. I want the boys to hear this, too.”
Movement. Outside the window, a line of gray figures trundling in the rain toward us.
“Hold on,” I say. “Someone’s coming.”
It’s a trio of village girls. They bring medicinal ointments and bandages. Kneeling before the still-unconscious Sissy, they work with practiced efficiency. A pungent cream is lathered onto the branded skin. It’s wiped off after a few minutes, and a different yellowish cream is layered on, less thickly. A bandage is placed around the burnt skin, but not on top of it.
“Apply a new coating every hour,” the lead girl says. She has hard eyes that sit upon soft, chubby cheeks, and her hair is done up in braided ponytails. She gets up to leave. The others follow suit, the floorboards creaking under their collective weight.
One of the other girls, with a high-pitched, wavering voice, speaks. “The elders wish to express their displeasure. Your removal of this girl from the clinic was a major indiscretion. Grand Elder Krugman, however, has decided no further discipline is necessary. Enough punishment has been meted out tonight. Justice has been rendered, orderliness has been restored.” The last sentence is intoned like a chant.
“However,” the third girl says, her face thin and flat, “the eldership further wishes to convey their desire that you each return to your abodes. All sleeping arrangements are strictly enforced. We will escort the boys to the cottage, and carry the girl back down to the farm.”
The boys look at each other.
“No,” Epap says. “That is not happening. We’re all staying here. From now on, we’re together.”
“The eldership is insistent.”
“As am I,” Epap says.
The girls, unaccustomed to challenging males face-to-face, wilt easily and quickly. One of them adjusts her dress. “I know what you are thinking,” she says. “That what happened tonight to your friend Sissy is an awful thing.”
“And it isn’t?” I say.
The girl peels back her sleeve. She has three brandings on her forearm. “I was once wild and undisciplined. I did not appreciate how my unruliness was a cancer to the Mission’s harmony. But I’ve matured. And now, I can honestly tell you that since I’ve learned to place the Mission before self, I’ve found the peace and joy I’d been seeking in all the wrong places. I’m happier than I’ve ever thought possible, especially knowing one day I will achieve the highest of joys, my ticket to the Civilization.”
She sees incredulity in my eyes. “The elders teach us—and I have come to see this is true—that this Mission will rise or fall depending on how well we sync with its harmony. That is why any deviance, no matter how small, must be dealt with swiftly and, unfortunately on rare occasions, drastically. But this is a peaceful, wonderful community. You must stop looking for a devil in every bush. Because you look needlessly.”
“You’ve been branded three times,” I say, pointing at her forearm. “What happens when you get five?”
She doesn’t answer, only pulls her sleeve over her arm. Her left eyebrow twitches. “It is time for us to leave,” she says. They pick up the medical baskets, waddle out of the room. I hear them tromping down the hallway.
Curiously, one of them has remained in the room. She is standing still. It’s the girl with braided pigtails. She suddenly spins around, looks at me.
“Be very careful,” she whispers urgently, her eyebrows pulled together into a single line of fear.
“What?” Epap says. Too loud.
The receding footsteps in the hallway stop. Then they start up again, but instead of fading, they get louder. They’re returning. And quickly. Like fists raining down on a door, louder, louder.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to the girl.
But it’s too late. The girl hears the approach of the other two and quickly collects herself. “Will you at least let us bring you some food?” she asks loudly. The other girls are back at the door, gazing curiously at her.
“No,” I answer. “Not after what happened earlier with the soup.”
The girl waddles out of the room, her pigtails bouncing up and down.
The trio of girls clomp down the stairs. We hear the front door open and close. And then they are gone.
27
“SO THAT’S WHERE we are,” I say to the boys. My voice is threadbare and hoarse after talking so long. “We need to decide what to do. Get on the train or not.”
For the past hour, I’ve shared with them everything Krugman told Sissy and me in his office. About the world, the history of the duskers, the Scientist. And about the Origin. Every so often, to give them time to digest the information, I’d stop speaking and add more wood to the fire or check on Sissy’s arm. I needed the time, too. Between almost getting into a fight in Krugman’s office, being drugged, and searching for Sissy, I had yet to digest everything myself. When I shared my suspicions about the Civilization—that it might not be the Promised Land but instead the Ruler’s Palace—my voice quivered, and I had to dig my fingers into my palm to keep them from trembling.
Epap puts his arm around Ben, who is now on the verge of tears. Nobody says anything as they sit on the rug between the fireplace and sofa on which Sissy still lies. Their faces are knotted into deep frowns. I spread a fresh coating of lotion on Sissy’s burn. Her breathing is deeper, more rhythmic, her brow drier. The effects of whatever drug she ingested fading, she’s coming to. Any minute now.
Outside, dusk—hidden behind the curtain of black rain—has segued imperceptibly into night.
“But we don’t know, do we?” Jacob says. “Not for sure, right? The Civilization could be the Promised Land. The train could be the way to paradise.”
“But remember what the girl with pigtails said,” I say. “She warned us to be careful.”
“But think about what the other girl said,” Jacob says. “That we shouldn’t go looking for a devil in every bush. Maybe this place really is the gateway to paradise.”
Sissy groans in pain, eyes still closed.
“Look what these same people did to Sissy,” I say. “How can you trust anything they say?”
Jacob gets off the floor, stands by the window. “Listen. I had this dream last night. About the Civilization.” He pauses, hesitating. But then he starts speaking, and a warmth suffuses his cheeks. “It was so real. I saw outdoor stadiums full of humans watching sports in sunlight, just like in all those books we read. Outdoor markets with hundreds of different stalls, summer concerts on lush grass, city blocks filled with restaurants, tables spilling out onto the streets, humans sitting and eating … salads. And there were amusement parks with parades and magical castles and thrilling rides. Carousels full of laughing children, magical boat rides surrounded by singing puppets that the Scientist told us about. We can’t not go there.”
“C’mon, Jacob, that’s just a dream. We can’t make a decision based on something so fluffy,” Epap scolds mildly.
“It’s no more fluffy than your guesswork.” He runs his hand through his hair. “All I’m trying to say is we don’t know anything. Not for certain, anyway.”
We fall quiet. I throw in another piece of wood and we gaze at the fire as if somewhere in the swirling light lies an answer.
“But we do know one thing for certain.” It’s Ben, his voice a high squeak. He is sitting hugging his bent legs, chin on kneecaps. He lifts his head off his knees with a smile. “The Origin. What it is.”
We all turn to him.
“Who it is, actually,” he says. He lifts his arm, his finger stretched out and pointing right at me. “You are the Origin,” Ben says. “It’s so obvious.”
“Me? How do you figure that?” I say, wanting to scoff, but somehow unable to. A skein of goose bumps breaks out along my body. The boys are all staring at me with the same expression they wore a few days ago. On the boat when they’d turned over the tablet and read the engraved words—
“Don’t let Gene die,” Ben says.
“Don’t let Gene die,” Jacob repeats, slowly and thoughtfully, as if feeling out the texture of each syllable. His eyes, when they rise to meet mine, widen. “Ben’s right. The Origin’s not a thing. It’s a person. It’s you. You must be the Origin.”
Wood crackles in the fireplace behind me.
“It kind of makes sense,” Epap says, pulling on his lower lip. “I mean, we’ve searched high and low for it. Through all our belongings, clothes. We’ve scoured the pages of the Scientist’s journal and come up empty every time. If the Origin was a thing in our possession we’d have found it by now.” He glances at Sissy lying on the sofa. “You said the elders believe it has something to do with lettering, maybe words tattooed into our skin. But what if the lettering isn’t something on our skin. But—”
“—in our name. In your name,” Ben says, staring at me.
Gene.
“What if the Origin is in your genes?” Ben says. “Like genetics. All that DNA stuff the Scientist taught us.”
They are staring at me as if I’ve suddenly grown five heads. “Naw,” I say, shaking my head. “Not that simple.” I frown, catch my reflection in the darkened window. “Is it?”
“Gene,” Epap says, slowly rising to his feet. “Did your father ever mention anything to you?”