Through the open door, I watched Fade work. He used the lighter his father had left him to kindle the smaller objects and then the sparks spread. Eventually the fire burned bright and clean, curls of smoke floating off toward the sky. In the enclave, we’d never have allowed it to get so big. Here, it didn’t seem to matter. I had the fleeting thought that someone might see the blaze and come to investigate, but if so, we’d handle them.
He turned and saw me staring. “Find anything good?”
“Maybe.”
I prowled some more, frustrated by his refusal to let me help outside. I wondered if I’d always be so useless Topside. On a tall shelf, I found a dusty metal box. I lifted it down and looked for a way to open it. Something important must be inside. An opening looked as though an item would fit, possibly opening it.
Eventually, I located the right object. I slid it in and heard a click. When I lifted the lid, I found the most marvelous thing. A book. Not part of one, not loose pages. A whole book. And it wasn’t flimsy like the ones I’d found down in the tunnel. Still, I was almost afraid to touch it.
The beige front had raised letters and green paint, outlining a fanciful design with a girl in strange clothes, a winged brat, and a bird. With some effort, I read the letters: “The Day Boy and the Night Girl. Fairy tales by George MacDonald.” Though I understood most of the words, others escaped me. Enthralled and breathless, I opened it. The book made a little popping sound, as if nobody had touched it in a long time. That was probably true. Using my finger to mark my place, I put more letters together slowly, and other words leaped out at me. “London: Arthur C. Fifield, 1904. Ed. by Greville MacDonald; printed by S. Clarke, Manchester.”
With great care, I turned the page, and my breath caught. Someone had written in the book. The Wordkeeper would be livid. In faded ink, it read: “with love to Gracie from Mary.” Those were names, I thought, and it implied this book had been a gift. Other hands had touched this, people who lived in the lost world. They’d known dreams like mine, and I’d never know how those stories ended. A marvelous sense of connection thrummed through me.
I forgot my worries. I forgot the danger. Using only my fingertips, I flipped to the next page, lightheaded with wonder.
She was not naturally cruel, but the wolf had made her cruel._]
She was straight and strong, but now and then would fall bent together, shudder, and sit for a moment with her head turned over her shoulder, as if the wolf had got out of her mind onto her back._
“What do you have there?” Fade asked.
I almost hid it from him, and then with a burst of shocking relief, I remembered I didn’t have to. Wordless, I held the book out to him. He looked at it, and his hands were as reverent as mine had been. He read faster than me, and when he finished that first page, his gaze met mine, glazed with awe.
“We’ll take it,” I said. “It doesn’t weigh much.”
He slipped the book into my bag and went back to work. By dark, we had enough clean water to last us a few days. Secretly, I feared leaving this place because I’d gotten used to these two rooms. Inside didn’t scare me. Outside, that enormous, monstrous sky hung over everything, and the size of it made me want to hide.
But there was something different about the dark this time. I took off my glasses and stared up. A curve of silver hung amid the brighter specks; it looked to me like a curved dagger, pretty but deadly, as if it might slice the sky in two.
I didn’t let him see how terrified I was. Instead I geared up as if this were nothing more than a routine patrol. I checked my weapons and our supplies; I shouldered my bag with the resolve of a Huntress. I could handle night.
But you’re not a Huntress. You’re just a girl with six scars.
At least Fade had them too. Maybe I’d been cast out of my tribe, but I wasn’t alone. That made all the difference. If I’d been sent Topside on my own, I’d have already given up. It was simply too different from what I knew. But his calm resolve made me believe we might someday see the green land promised in his father’s stories. If we didn’t, it would be because it didn’t exist, not because we hadn’t tried.
As I stepped outside, a boom sounded, practically shaking the ground itself. I flattened myself against the building. While I cowered, water spilled down, like the pipes in the enclave, but a hundred times more powerful. It soaked me to the bone in no time, and I stood frozen in it, face upturned.
“Don’t worry. It’s rain.” Fade stood close enough for me to feel his heated breath against my ear. A shiver rolled through me, echoed in distant crashes that shook the ground beneath my feet. He lifted his face as well, drinking it in, and I gazed at him through that silver curtain, watching as it glazed his features, all pallor and prettiness. Droplets spiked his lashes, so that I wanted to—
I shouldn’t want that. Rain. Instead I focused on the other part of what I felt.
“It doesn’t burn,” I whispered.
In fact, it felt amazing. I hadn’t bathed recently, and this was the next best thing. I started to smile. I turned slowly, admiring the flashes of light. Rain pounded against the ground until it sounded like a chorus of running feet combined with shushing whispers. I’d never heard anything so lovely. I didn’t even mind we had to walk in it; I only hoped the book was safe and dry. At the first chance, I wanted to read more of it.
“No. They had that wrong too.”
Along with so many things. For the first time, I felt sorry for the people trapped by the enclave rules, who would never break free, who would never see any of this. Who would live and die in the dark.
“I want to go back,” I said. “The elders need to know the truth.”
Fade put his hands on my shoulders. “They won’t listen, Deuce. They’ll kill us on sight. Besides … don’t you think I told them?”
Sickness boiled up inside me. They didn’t share the knowledge with us. Not even a whisper got out, after Fade’s arrival. None of us ever knew where he came from, nothing he’d seen or done. I’d thought his silence meant he didn’t want to talk, but now I realized the truth.
“They threatened you.”
“Not a threat, so much. I could fight for them or I could die.” He repeated what he’d said before, and only then, the enormity sank in for me.
All along, they’d known, and they’d chosen to keep us all in the dark. Literally, figuratively. I felt lost, as if I had nothing left to believe in.