It should be the first of the steps up to the bridge—but, it wasn’t. It was person. A dead one. Kieli whimpered. No sooner had she pulled her foot away than she tripped over something else and fell over it, landing on her butt on the other side. When she looked to see what it had been, she saw another corpse just like the first one. Facedown. It wore a grayish-green jacket like a soldier’s uniform. Its back was covered in blood. It lay slumped limply across some rubble jutting out of the ground, and dried bloodstains on the rubble traced the shapes of the fingers on its wide-flung hands. Wait. Rubble —? She’d crossed the bridge, and on this side of the bridge was the park gate, and yet somehow she was now somewhere completely different. And anyway, the time seemed all wrong. Instead of the slate-gray night sky, the sandy, cloudy sky of daytime stretched out in front of her as far as the eye could see. Underneath that sky, instead of a cityscape made of clockwork attractions, she saw a real city, half in ruins. Clouds of dust blew by between the rubble-covered corpses littering the ground. The dust was a red-brown color, as if dyed with blood spray. Some of the bodies lay limp against the rubble with their backs bloody messes, some of them were missing arms or legs, and some of them had no heads attached— No…no, no, no…! Kieli couldn’t even find the breath to scream anymore. For the moment she just backed away as fast as she could, reaching behind herself to feel her way along the rubble and keep from touching any of the bodies. From somewhere far off in the distance came a low rumble like the sound of an earthquake. Like the sound of a cannon—and then someplace a little nearer by, there was a series of explosions that shook the air around her. Before the echoes had even died down, she heard more of them, this time even nearer. They were coming closer and closer. Boom! The instant she heard the blast go off almost right on top of her and saw the column of smoke rising from the ground, Kieli jerked into motion. She bolted. Stumbling over pieces of rubble, half-crying as she stepped over the limbs of the dead, she had no idea where she was or where she was going. She just ran away from the sound of the cannons. Inside she was chanting one name over and over, like a magic spell to keep her heart from breaking right there in her chest: Harvey, Harvey, Harvey… Maybe she’s dead? The men’s conversation from earlier came back to her mind, and the sight of that other her lying unmoving at the bottom of the stairs. Could this ruined city be the world of the dead…? “No way…” But her voice sounded thin and uncertain, and even she didn’t find the denial convincing. By the time Kieli tired out and stopped running, the tears wouldn’t come anymore. All that was left was the tightness to her skin where the desert wind had dried them from her cheeks. She looked down, focused on nothing but the rubble in front of her and the sight of her own boots, one of which was still untied, and put one foot in front of the other, treading with heavy steps over the shards of broken glass and concrete. The tip of one boot kicked something that rolled a little ways. A bloody uniformed arm. Shifting her gaze a little, she saw the body of a soldier lying faceup and glaring at her with empty, gaping eyes. She didn’t even have the energy to react now, though. Her numb brain called up numb thoughts like I just wish his ghost were somewhere nearby as she stepped over the arm and kept going. I need somebody alive…Kieli looked up in mute appeal. It seemed as if she’d walked a long way, but the scenery hardly changed at all. Along a street lined with half-broken buildings flowed a river of debris dotted with human remains that extended straight ahead past the dust-hazy horizon. When she found the one single person moving in that river, she was so past hope of really being able to see someone there that her first reaction wasn’t joy; it was at doubt her own eyes. He wasn’t an adult. He was a boy not much taller than Kieli. Just as she wondered to herself what he was doing there, he kicked one of the bodies over so that it was right-side-up, then crouched down and began to go through its uniform pockets and belt pouch. He’s scavenging corpses… The boy happened to look up at her then, and Kieli swallowed, startled. What?—For just a moment, she could’ve sworn he looked like someone else, but there wasn’t anything about him distinctive enough for her to think who, and the feeling slipped away before she could capture it. He looked a bit surprised to see someone, too. It didn’t seem to bother him much, though. The expression quickly vanished from his face and he went back to what he’d been doing. So she tried an, “Um…” He glanced sharply back up at her, looking annoyed. Transfixed by slate-gray eyes that fit bizarrely well with the scene of concrete wreckage, Kieli faltered a little, but she went on. “I…can’t get home anymore, and I’ve got nowhere to go…” She realized only after she opened her mouth that she didn’t even know herself what kind of help she should be asking for, so in the end she only managed the kind of thing a little lost child might say. She’d had a vague idea that things might work out if only she could find someone here, but just finding them wasn’t going to work anything out all by itself (which should’ve been obvious). Not knowing what to say next, Kieli fell silent. The corpse-robber boy frowned quizzically at her and spoke for the first time. “What? Did your parents die?” “Y-Yeah…a long time ago.” “What school do you go to?” “I don’t go to school right now…” Kieli gave unsatisfactory answers to his point-blank questions; meanwhile, he looked uninterestedly away from her and went back to his work. He selected watches, gum, and everything else small and promising and dumped them into his own coat pockets, then stood up and turned as if to just walk away. Kieli gaped at him, lost. Then he tossed a glance at her over his shoulder and jerked his chin lightly. Apparently he was telling her it was okay to follow him. She was only a tiny bit relieved, but it was something. She jogged after him, and he immediately turned his back on her and started walking. “Um, hey…where are we?” “South Westerbury, duh.” She dumbly repeated the curt answer. “South Westerbury…” So she really was still in Westerbury after all—but looking all around the devastated landscape, she couldn’t even see the clock tower. Unable to quite shake off the fear that they were in the land of the dead, she asked, “Er, are you really alive?” “. . .” After the question came out of her mouth, she thought, Oh, no, that was a weird thing to ask, and sure enough, the boy threw her a very suspicious look over his shoulder. As an awkward silence fell, she decided she had nobody else to turn to and she’d be in trouble if he dumped her, so she quietly followed him through the deserted ruins. Unlike Kieli, who was unsteady as she climbed over the piles of rubble and broken pavement, the boy strode confidently down the rough road as if he did it every day. He was about the same height as she was, and maybe two years younger. In boarding school terms, she guessed he’d be in his eighth or ninth year. After a while, she tried a different question. “Aren’t there any more people here…?” He showed no signs of turning or answering her, so she was just resigning herself to walking a bit longer in silence when he suddenly raised his arm without slowing down and pointed at something in front of them. The hazy sand-colored sky above was the same as ever, but they’d left the site of that street warfare with its bloody horrors and come into a district with relatively intact buildings. When she looked ahead of them there was a break in the buildings like a vacant lot, and then on the other side of that a great, still building much bigger than a normal house. Drabber, too. A school. It didn’t have a chapel with stained glass windows like the Church boarding school, but she could tell what it was right away. Aside from the crumbling last quarter or so at the end, the walls lined with perfectly spaced windows were more or less undamaged. In the middle of the first floor she could see a rectangular entrance cut into the building. Schoolchildren in their third or fourth year were chasing a soccer ball around the yard, but when one of them noticed Kieli and the boy, he turned around, and the others followed his lead. The moment they laid eyes on Kieli, all the kids stopped dead in their tracks. The abandoned soccer ball bounced along the ground between their suddenly motionless legs and rolled off away from their game. Kieli stiffened uncomfortably under their piercing half-wary, half-curious gazes as she followed the boy onto the grounds. “Who’s that?” “Is she visiting?” “What grade is she?” The younger kids’ questions all tumbled out over each other as they passed, but the boy with the slate eyes answered them only with an unhelpful “Picked her up on the street” before he cut through the courtyard. “Hello,” Kieli greeted them nervously as she quickened her steps to keep up. Then something made her pause and take notice. Oblivious to all the other kids clamoring excitedly around them, there was one solitary child who stayed where she was and kept on playing by herself. The contrast made her attract Kieli’s attention more than the ones making the noise. A little girl, about first year, squatting in the sand below a pair of high and low chin-up bars that stood in one corner of the playground. She was poking at the sand with a stick and humming something. Her voice was almost too soft to hear, but when Kieli strained her ears she caught a snatch of something familiar. Tick, tock, tick, tock… I was right! Kieli thought. It’s her! It was Nana’s “invisible friend,” the ghost girl who’d sung with the Corporal at the bottom of the park steps—did that mean this place was the land of the dead after all? Kieli was getting beyond confused now. Flustered, she called out for the boy ignoring them and striding toward the schoolhouse to wait, and that was when it happened. “Joachim,” said a voice that struck a resounding chord in her memory. When she looked over the boy’s shoulder, she saw another boy appear in one of the first-floor windows. Propping his elbows on the sill and leaning lightly out, he spared a glance at Kieli before transferring his gaze to the slate-eyed boy. “Who’s she?” “Beats me. She says she’s got nowhere to go.” “There you go bringing home weird stuff on a whim again…” “You take care of her.” “Excuse me?” The volley of short phrases passed through Kieli’s ears without being processed by her brain. She stood rooted to the spot, unconsciously holding her breath, her eyes fixed on the new boy’s face. He seemed about the same age as the slate-eyed boy. An expressionless face that looked a little too worldly for his body, eyes and hair colored the same ruddy copper as the sunset—there was no escaping it. He looked like a certain someone. Wait, no, hold on—Kieli started and turned to look at her guide, but by then he’d already disappeared through the entryway and left her behind. Hold on, didn’t he just call that boy “Joachim”…? Which meant…could it mean…this boy might really be… At that very moment, a new voice called out a name that told her yes, it very much could mean. “Ephraim! Ephraim, come quick!” “Elisha fell!” She turned toward the younger kids shouting up at him and saw that girl from the sand pit sprawled facedown in the middle of the yard. “Seriously, why does everybody tell me this stuff…?” the boy at the window griped under his breath. The little girl bounced back to her feet before long as if nothing had happened, but blood was oozing steadily out of giant scrapes on both her knees. The boy sighed and swung himself right up and over the windowsill. Then he was loping toward her. The girl was standing in place, looking down at her legs with no reaction whatsoever, but when he picked her up in his arms she clung on tightly to his neck and started bawling, as if it had only just occurred to her. “Talk about delayed reaction.” Holding his face slightly away from the wailing voice beneath his ear, he tucked her more firmly into his grip and headed for the school entrance, urging the other kids along with him. “It’s almost lunch. Who’s on duty?” “Sarah and Nahar.” “No, it’s Seth!” The little kids all followed after him, poking and prodding each other. Kieli was left standing outside all alone with nothing to do, until the boy turned around in front of the doorway. “Nurse’s office,” he said shortly. When Kieli blinked, he frowned slightly and looked her up and down. She followed his gaze and realized that she was giving Elisha a run for her money in the scrapes and bruises department. She looked battered from head to toe. The memory welled up in her mind—Pin that leg down!—and she pulled the tattered neckline of her sweater closer around her with both hands, biting her lip. “You coming?” She looked up at the sound of his voice to see that he’d stopped walking. He was waiting for her. He gestured toward the doorway with those ruddy copper eyes in such harmony with the thinly clouded sky. “How come you look like you’re about to cry? Come on. This way,” he growled, and then disappeared into the school. The same eyes that seemed to feel less than everyone else; the same pleasant gravel in his voice even if his tone was a little different; his curt, choppy way of talking—as Kieli stood dumbstruck, the face of a man who sometimes said those same things clicked unmistakably with his in her mind. In a distant corner of their sky, the long, low boom of a cannon sounded.
Chapter 77
13 min read