SIX
THEY RAN INTO THE FOREST, AND THEY DID NOT NEED TO
carry Pamela. Once they set her in the right direction, she ran
fearlessly, without even noticing the rocks or branches in her
path. She seemed to feel no pain but kept rushing forward, even
when branches snapped in her face or cut her arms. When they began
to climb the mountain, she climbed capably, looking straight ahead.
Honor was amazed at how agile her mother was and how
strong.
Honor could hear dogs barking and Safety
Officers crashing through the trees. She tried to climb faster, but
she could hear the dogs panting louder. She could hear them
panting, practically at her heels. She remembered the dog’s teeth
cutting her leg. She remembered the yellow eyes of the dogs that
had come to search her house. It was too dark to see, and they were
climbing blind, with only the dim glow of Mr. Pratt’s flashlight to
guide them. Honor was sweating and filthy, and her hands were numb
from fighting vines and thorns. Her leg oozed and stung. Her body
ached from pressing forward over the steep and slippery ground; she
gasped for air, and when she slipped, she scrambled up again and
climbed on, but the dogs were coming closer.
She stumbled. She reached for something,
anything, to hold. Her mother and the Pratts were climbing ahead of
her and didn’t see. She wanted to call to them to wait, but she had
no breath left. She was afraid the dogs would catch her and tear
her apart. Her body screamed with exhaustion. She wanted to climb;
she wanted to escape, but she couldn’t run farther. She fell to the
ground.
Even as she fell, she heard the dogs sink back.
There was a confusion of barking, and then, like a tide drawn back,
the animals yelped in pain and ran the other way.
The Pratts heard the change and turned back as
well. Mrs. Pratt held Pamela by the hand to make her wait, and Mr.
Pratt came to help Honor up again. The barking of the dogs was
fading; the animals were racing down the mountain now. Honor was
confused and dizzy.
“Don’t stop,” Mr. Pratt told her. “We’re almost
there. Take my hand.” He pulled her into the pillbox, where they
were safe.
“Pamela,” Mr. Pratt said to Honor’s mother, “can
you hear me?”
Pamela was too confused to listen. She did not
turn in the direction of his voice. Her face and bald head were
covered with sweat, her nightshirt soaked through.
“Drink this,” said Mrs. Pratt, and offered
Pamela freshwater.
The Pratts were taking care of her mother, but
Honor couldn’t help. She curled up on the floor of the pillbox and
tucked her knees to her chest. She was shaking, freezing. She
couldn’t stop thinking of the Watcher screaming in the flaming
tower. She kept thinking of the flames and the ground crawling with
orderlies. As soon as she closed her eyes, she saw them writhing
and creeping in the dust. She felt she would never be warm
again.
In the morning, Honor found herself curled up at
Pamela’s side. She touched her mother and she was real. “It’s me,”
she whispered. Pamela did not stir. Honor drew closer and whispered
again in her mother’s ear, “It’s me.”
“She’s still sleeping. We have to be patient.”
Honor sat up now, wide awake. It was her father. He was standing
with the Pratts, smiling down at her. His sleeve was torn and his
arm bandaged, but there he was.
She sprang to her feet and rushed over to him.
“How did you escape? How did you get here?” Her voice was muffled
against his chest.
“I ran until I reached the north watchtower,” he
told her. “Then I climbed the ladder and knocked out the Watcher
inside. I saw all of you running away and the Safety Officers and
their dogs chasing you. I was afraid to shoot from up there and hit
one of you, so I climbed down and followed at a
distance.”
“How many were they?”
“Two Safety Officers and two dogs. When they
began closing in on you, I closed in on them. I ambushed them from
behind and shot the dogs.”
“How come the Safety Officers didn’t capture you
then?” Honor asked.
“They would have, but I had the taser and I had
the Thompsons with me.”
“They’re alive!”
“They’d been waiting in the forest near the
Barracks in case of emergency.”
“But where have they been?”
“They ran away beford I did.”
“So they weren’t taken to be
orderlies.”
“No, they’d escaped into the forest. After I ran
away, I found them. At first we all camped together, but then we
decided to split up. I stayed with the Pratts and they hid closer
to the shore. We were hoping that if Retrievers found some of us
they wouldn’t find all. Mr. Pratt was the messenger between us
because he knows the forest best.”
“Now they’ve gone ahead,” said Mr. Pratt. “We’ll
meet them tomorrow morning.”
Will bent over Pamela and stroked her
cheek.
“If you want her to open her eyes, lift her
head, like a doll,” Honor said.
Her father smiled. “That will wear off,” he
said. “You’ll see.”
All day they rested there while Pamela slept.
Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they ate the fruit Mrs. Pratt
had picked, and sometimes they just watched the white clouds in the
bright sky.
When the sun began to set, Will told Honor,
“Look at the colors. Tell me how many you can see.”
“Gold,” she said, “and yellow. Now the blue is
changing to lavender.”
“How many colors?”
“I can’t count them all,” she told
him.
“But look again.”
She’d only glanced away for a moment, but the
whole sky had changed. The lavender was on fire, flaming red. Then
the red was gone, and the clouds burned fiery orange. “Everything’s
changing,” Honor said. “It’s too fast.”
“That’s how natural sunsets are,” her father
reminded her. “And every night is different.”
“We need to wake her and start hiking down,”
said Mr. Pratt.
They half lifted Pamela from the floor, but her
eyes did not open. Honor spoke to her. Will spoke to her. Pamela
did not respond. Her breathing was regular. Her arms hung loose and
relaxed, not limp over the top of the blanket as they had in the
Barracks. She was in a deep sleep.
“Pamela. It’s time for us to go,” Will said
firmly. “Wake up now.”
But she did not wake up.
Honor bent over her mother and sang softly,
“Over the river and through the wood to Grandmother’s house we go .
. .”
Pamela rolled over on her side.
“. . . the horse knows the way to carry the
sleigh, o’er the white and drifting snow . . .”
“Over the river and through the wood,” sang
Will. “Oh, how the wind does blow. It stings the toes and bites the
nose as over the ground we go.”
Pamela’s eyes opened. She looked up at Will and
blinked.
“Pamela,” said Will.
She didn’t answer. She just looked up at
him.
Will cupped her face in his hands and kissed her
lips. He whispered, “I’m here.”
For a moment Honor saw a hint of recognition in
her mother’s eyes.
All night they hiked down the mountain. Mr.
Pratt led the way with his flashlight. Will followed him, and then
Honor and Pamela. Mrs. Pratt brought up the rear. Together they
slipped and slid and clambered down through muddy gullies and
overgrown gulches. Even Will had not traveled on this slope, but
Mr. Pratt knew the ground, and he was confident they would not lose
their way.
It was still dark when they came to the ragged
seaside edge of the forest. The ground was sandy and covered with
sea grapes—scraggly, succulent plants. The ocean was calm all
around them, scarcely visible in the darkness except for silvery
ripples on the shore. The sand was powder soft and, where it was
wet, covered with tiny holes, the breathing holes of little white
crabs so delicate Honor could almost see through them. Honor had
never seen creatures so quick and fine as those white crabs
skittering across the water-smoothed sand.
There was no one else at the shore. There were
no drowned buildings or Danger signs or fences of barbed wire. The
only noise was that of the water breathing softly in and
out.
“We’re here,” said Will.
“We’re here.” That was Pamela’s voice, echoing
his. And those were the first words she spoke.
“Come into the water,” Will told
Pamela.
Honor was confused. She didn’t understand, but
Will led Pamela into the dark water, all the way up to her waist,
and then he cupped his hands full of salt water and washed Pamela’s
eyes. Pamela cried out in pain when the salty water stung her.
Water streamed down her face as she winced and blinked. Her eyes
were no longer fixed and motionless. She looked everywhere. She
recognized everyone.
Honor ran to the edge of the ocean. She only
hesitated a moment. Then she waded into the warm water. The cut on
her leg stung from the salt, but Honor ignored the pain and leaned
against her mother. “Do you recognize me now? Did you know I’d find
you?”
Pamela didn’t answer at first. Then she wrapped
her arms around Honor. She whispered, “I didn’t know, but I was
waiting. I waited so long I didn’t even know I was
waiting.”
All the rest of that night they
talked.
“Can you believe it?” Mrs. Pratt asked softly.
“Did you ever think about escaping?”
“No,” said Pamela. “I never thought of escaping
on my own.”
“I wished that they had taken me,” Will
murmured. “I wanted to trade places with you.”
“But that’s the strange part,” Pamela told him.
“I didn’t want to trade with anyone. As soon as they put me in the
sack I felt that I belonged there.”
“Weren’t you scared?” Honor asked.
“No,” said Pamela. “The sack was coated inside
with enough Planet Safe to tranquilize me. I curled up in the
darkness and I felt calm, and as the drug began to work I felt
relieved and even happy. I felt as though I were floating. One
memory after another returned to me. . . .”
“But how? Weren’t you memory-sick?” asked Will.
“With that much Planet Safe you’d forget everything.”
“I was forgetting the recent past,” said Pamela,
“but all the old times were coming back to me. I saw all the pieces
of my life; it was like watching my life underwater. I saw you,
Honor. And you,” she said to Will. “Quintilian. I saw our kites up
in the sky. I saw that little cat,” she told Honor, “the one that
jumped when we found the drawing book. I saw the Northern Islands
and the light there in winter, the way the sun melted in the sky. I
saw our wooden boat and felt the slosh of water in the bottom. I
could see the chipped paint on our boat. Do you remember the
color?”
Will shook his head.
“Blue. I remembered the name of our boat. Do you
remember what we called her?”
“No,” said Will.
Pamela laughed. “We called the boat Shamela.
Wasn’t that a funny name?”
“You remembered all those things?” asked Mrs.
Pratt.
“Oh, it was lovely. Delicious. I remembered
things I haven’t thought about in years. All those times in the
past came back to me, but they began rushing faster and faster.
They began to blur. The boat and the water and the kites in the sky
began to spin and I felt lighter and lighter. Soon the mail
carriers were lifting me from the sack and setting me down on the
ground.”
“Were you in pain?” Will asked.
“No,” said Pamela, “nothing hurt me, not even
the needle tattooing the number on my arm.”
“Didn’t you want to run away?” asked
Honor.
“Even if I’d wanted to, I had no control over my
body. My legs wouldn’t carry me,” her mother said. “I grew lighter
and lighter as the tranquilizer wore off. Then they fed me and gave
me mineral water to drink.”
“Orderlies consume much stronger food and drink
than the rest of us,” Mr. Pratt said. “Ordinary people only lose
their long-term memories—of their childhoods, their parents, their
first loves—but they keep their short-term memories. They’re
up-to-date within five years. I always thought orderlies lost their
memories altogether.”
“They lose the recent past and dream of long
ago,” said Pamela. “The longer orderlies work, the less they
remember of themselves or where they were when they were taken.
Eventually all they have is fragments of their early lives. They
start dreaming all the time. It’s like living in a
trance.”
“If you were in a trance, how did you remember
me?” Honor asked.
Pamela thought for a moment. “You were always in
my dream,” she said. “You came back to me as you were in the
Northern Islands. In the bakery you didn’t look the same as the
little girl that I remembered, but I knew you must be Honor,
because you looked directly at me.”
“So your eyes worked,” said Honor.
“Orderlies can see what’s right in front of
them. And they can see faces too,” said Pamela. “But no one ever
looks.”
“What else did you remember?” Will asked
Pamela.
She sifted the white sand through her fingers.
“I remember the other beach,” she said.
And for a moment Honor could remember too. She
could remember the smooth pebbles on the beach in the Northern
Islands and the gold light and the cold water. And she could almost
remember something else. She could almost touch the memory; she
wanted to, but she only felt the edge of it.
“Did you remember all the constellations?” Will
asked Pamela. “Could you still find them when you looked at the
stars?”
“No,” Pamela said. “I never looked at the
sky.”
Mr. Pratt set his battered box on the sand. He
opened the lid and unpacked something wrapped in scarves and soft
cloth. It was a strange musical instrument of satiny smooth wood.
The instrument had a body shaped like a teardrop, a long thin neck,
and many strings. Honor counted fifteen. When Mr. Pratt plucked the
strings, they rang softly. He turned pegs to tune each one, and as
he tested the strings, Honor heard their sound amplified by the
rounded body of the instrument.
“What is it?” she asked.
“This is a lute,” Mr. Pratt told her. His left
hand played on the instrument’s neck as his right hand plucked.
“Listen.”
They lay on their backs in the sand and
listened. Mr. Pratt played music that sounded like sweet rain
falling and then like fairy tales. Like princesses running up and
down secret staircases. He played music that sounded like dances
and then like the memory of those dances, wistful recollections of
times past.
“Why is the lute so sad?” Honor asked when Mr.
Pratt finished playing.
Mr. Pratt smiled. “The lute isn’t sad. The music
was. I was playing a song in a minor key.”
Honor was surprised. She went to music class
three times a week, but she had never heard of a minor key. “We
only learn happy songs,” she said.
“Oh, you’ve been missing out,” said Mr. Pratt as
his fingers played on.
There was no other sound in the world like the
sound of the lute mixed with the shushing waves. The music was
wistful and quiet, ancient music with ancient patterns, sometimes
expected and sometimes Unpredictable. Honor lay between her
parents, and as they listened, they looked up at the stars. There
were so many they seemed like silver dust. So many more stars than
Honor remembered.