Shadows of Glass (18 page)

I’ve got to know what happened to him. The problem is I’m not really sure where it
was when I attacked him. I have just a general idea of the direction. Jonah runs ahead
of me, with his tail straight up, taking delight in the sights and sounds of this
exciting new world. I keep on, fairly certain I’m going in the right direction, until
I see the familiar shape of the branch lying on the ground.

I pick it up and look at the blood on it. It is dried now and a tiny black ant is
stuck to it, long dead after his struggles to escape. I pitch the branch away, disgusted
with the thing it has wrought at my hand. Jonah runs over to investigate it as soon
as it hits the ground. He flattens his ears at the smell of the blood and hisses at
the branch.

The grass is flattened where the rover lay. I look around for the tracks that Pace
talked about. I recognize mine, made fresh in the earth last night from the rain that
had just fallen, and notice how they closely follow those of the rover. While my tracks
are plain, his have a marking in them, as if he’d carved the letter
T
on the heel of his shoe. I look closer and see the goat’s cloven hoof prints cross
over our path where it ran back to the others. As much as I do not want to be there,
I go to where the grass is flattened and look closer. A few tufts of grass have blood
on them. His friends must have come looking for him. But what did they do when they
found him? How many of them are there? I walk away from the grass, away from the dome,
in the direction of thicker, darker woods. I keep my eyes on the ground, looking for
more tracks, but the grass is so thick here that …

I see tracks. One set. And they have the mark on them. But how? I look back at the
place where we fought and then at the tracks again. They are definitely leading away.
I follow them for a few paces, my eyes looking for the patches of dirt between the
clumps of grass, and I see another one.

My breath comes rapidly from my lungs, and I put my hand on a tree to keep myself
upright. I look at my hand and see blood on the bark, a little above where my hand
sits.

He’s alive. He was able to get up and walk away. He stopped here, just as I did, before
he continued on. I am filled with such a sense of relief that I slide to the ground
with my back against the tree and cry. I cannot stop myself. The tears come and they
are accompanied by great heaving sobs that I cannot quiet no matter now hard I want
to. Jonah meows at me questioningly and then jumps up the trunk of the tree and scrambles
into the leaves.

“Wren?” It is Levi. “Are you hurt?” He drops down to one knee in front of me, concern
plainly written on his handsome face, compassion showing in his warm brown eyes, and
I am struck, once more, by how beautiful he is. He carries a weapon that I have never
seen before. It hangs by a strap from his shoulder and he puts it aside as he rocks
back on his heels at my answer.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” I ask. He certainly looks capable of it, with all his
weapons. They seem like a natural part of him, the way Pip seems a part of Pace.

He tilts his head sideways, as if to see me better, and his brown eyes widen in surprise
at my question. I have to admit that it probably was not what he was expecting me
to say.

He answers my question with one of his own. “Would it make a difference in how you
see me if I had?”

I study him closely. I really know nothing about him, but he and his family have shown
me and my friends nothing but kindness when they could have just turned me away after
finding out everything they wanted to know. It is not something I have ever known
from strangers, yet it was the very thing that kept me going when things were at their
worst. The kindness of Pace, of Lucy and David, even Jilly, who is of royal blood.
I cannot judge Levi for the things that have happened to him before I met him. I do
not know what he has had to do to survive, anymore than he can judge me for the things
I have done.

“No, it wouldn’t,” I answer truthfully.

Levi pulls a large linen square from his pocket and hands it to me before he sits
down next to me with his back against the tree. “Wipe your tears,” he instructs as
I look at the pure white linen. It is like the napkin, much nicer than my clothes,
still I use it to wipe my face and check it to make sure I have not soiled it too
much. “Now tell me why you asked me such a deep question and why you are out here
by yourself, crying your eyes out.”

I cannot look at him as I speak the words. “I was afraid I killed someone.”

“What do you mean afraid?”

“Last night, before you found me. I was with the ponies and a rover came up and stole
one of the goats. I hid when I saw him. When he took the goat I followed him. I found
a branch and I hit him in the back of the head. There was blood and he fell and I
ran…”

“And that’s what you were doing out by yourself when you saw us dock.”

“Yes,” I said. “And that was the bloody branch Pace and the others found last night
when they were looking for me.”

“But there wasn’t a body.”

“No. I think he was able to walk away. At least that’s what I think from looking at
the tracks. And the goat is still missing. I thought he ran back to the pens but he’s
not there now.”

“So either he wasn’t dead and left or he was dead and his friends found him and stole
the goat.”

“I think he wasn’t dead.” I turn my head to look at Levi. “I just wish I knew for
sure.”

“I never answered your question, Wren,” he says. He is quiet for a moment, considering
his words, and then he answers. “Yes, I have killed someone. It wasn’t a pleasant
experience. But I had to in order to survive.”

“He was trying to kill you?”

“Yes, actually trying to kill all of us. As we said last night, the world is still
recovering and not all of it is civilized. I fear your rovers might be part of the
latter group.”

“Is there a difference then? Is there a list of rules that justifies killing?”

“Such a complicated question, Wren. One that I’m not qualified to answer. Can you
be more specific?”

“Is it right to kill someone because they want to kill you and not right to kill someone
who steals from you?”

“This wasn’t your first time,” Levi asks. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“It wasn’t,” I admit. “I killed someone before. Inside. Because he tried to ra … rape
me.”

“Then you were most definitely justified. There isn’t a court in our land that would
convict you.”

“But last night I attacked a man over a goat.”

“And that one goat might make the difference over your survival. Maybe not today,
but in a few weeks if things like last night keep happening.” Levi leans forward and
turns so he faces me. “The human race has been through a terrible time, and people
do what they have to, to survive. You were only doing what you thought was right,
to protect the people you love.”

I nod. What he says makes sense, but it doesn’t make the guilt or the pain I carry
inside any easier to bear.

Levi reaches out a finger and touches a tear that I’d missed, wiping it on the linen
square that I have clutched tightly in my hand. “Your guilt is a good thing, Wren.
It’s doing something like you did and not feeling anything that is wrong. I have a
feeling that the rover you bashed felt no compunction whatsoever about stealing your
goat, which is why he went back and finished the job when he woke up.”

“If it was him that woke up.”

“I have a feeling it was. If more had come looking for him do you think they would
have stopped with one goat?”

“No,” I agree. “We know that they have traded their weapons for young men and women
with the bluecoats in the dome.”
With my father …
I do not say. “Jon saw them the first night he was out with one of his friends who
has disappeared. He said they were leading her with a rope around her neck.”

“As I said, uncivilized,” Levi says. “My uncle will want to look into this. He abhors
slavery of any kind. Which is why he was immediately drawn to your side of the struggle.
You and your people were nothing more than slaves to those inside.”

I nod. I never thought of it as being slavery, or maybe I just didn’t want to consider
myself to be a slave. I just thought of it as being my place, as that is what I was
always told. My life was due to the unlucky circumstances of my birth. I remember
reading stories of slaves in the Bible. Not specific stories of slaves, just references.
I just thought it was the way things were everywhere for everyone. I never considered
that the world beyond the dome would do things differently.

“Why did you confess this to me?” Levi asks. “Instead of Pace. There is something
between you two, isn’t there?”

“Yes, there is,” I say. I think on it for a moment. Why didn’t I confide in Pace?
“I didn’t want to tell him because he has this ideal of me as being some great leader,
like a savior or something. And I’m not. I’m just me, trying to figure it all out
and doing the best that I can. Yet he keeps on saying things, just like you did last
night. Telling me I am brave and special. I’m not. I’m just me. Wren. A shiner.”

“A shiner with a purpose,” Levi says. “Do not underestimate yourself, or the things
you can do.”

“Now you sound like Pace,” I say and he grins at me.

“What of your family, Wren?” he asks. “Did you lose them in the catastrophe?”

“My mother died when I was born, and my grandmother soon after. My grandfather raised
me. He died a few days before everything happened. He blew up a tunnel to keep the
filchers from capturing Pace and I.”

“I’m sorry,” Levi says. “What are filchers?”

“They are like rovers, only they live inside the dome.” I go on to explain. “They
come from the street people, which we call scarabs because they have to scrounge for
everything they have. They are descended from the people who managed to hide inside
before the dome was closed up. They wear horrible masks and haunt the streets. They
rape and they steal and they plunder. They also do things that the bluecoats, what
we call the enforcers, don’t want to do. Basically they will do anything for a reward
and are to be avoided at all costs.”

“Ah,” Levi says. “Bounty hunters.” I nod, as it sounds logical. “And your enforcers
are what we call policemen. Every city in America has a police force and the outlying
areas have sheriffs.”

There is so much to learn about this new outside world. “Not all scarabs are bad or
become filchers,” I add. “I don’t approve of what they do, but I believe it’s born
of desperate measures. Jon comes from the scarabs. Like me, he just wanted to find
a way out of the dome.”

“You explained about your mother,” Levi says. “Where is your father?”

My father … “I never really knew him,” I say because it is true. “He came from above.”
I still don’t really know him. I probably never will because our worlds are so totally
different, and I really don’t want to explain about him to Levi or anyone else for
that matter. “What about your family? Lyon is your mother’s brother?”

“Yes. My father and Lyon were best friends. He was an adventurer also.”

“Was?”

“My mother, my father, and my older brother were killed when their airship caught
fire. I was ten at the time. I would have died also except I threw a tantrum that
day because I wanted to go to a friend’s birthday party. My mother gave in and let
me go, and I was allowed to spend the night with my friend also, as they were taking
the new ship out to test it.” He grew quiet for a moment, still grieving for his parents
I expect as I still grieve for the mother I never knew. “I’ve been living with Lyon
and Jane ever since, except for a short time when I lived with my father’s mother.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Levi shrugs. “It happens. You grieve and you go on. Isn’t that what you did when your
grandfather died, and your friend Alex?”

“So many people have died besides them.”

“But so many survived,” he says. “You say Pace sees you as a great hero and you are
not. You are also not the reason so many died.”

“But,” I begin, and he puts a finger to my lips to stop me.

“You can’t have it both ways. Denying your part in this will not bring those people
back. Denying your part only serves to make their deaths inconsequential.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Did they ask you to stop? Did they say, no we will not leave the dome even if you
do find a way out?”

I shake my head. “They didn’t believe it.”

“They didn’t have to. You believed it enough for everyone.”

I shake my head again. I am so confused and there is so much to think about. Jonah
looks down from the branch above and meows questioningly.

“A friend of yours?” Levi asks.

“His name is Jonah.”

“Like the story with the whale?”

“Yes!” I say and smile.

“Brilliant!” Levi stands and extends his hand to me. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes I am.”

“Then you can help me hunt.” He picks up his weapon. “This is a crossbow. And it doesn’t
make any noise. We wouldn’t want to alert those rovers to our presence now would we?”

“No, we wouldn’t.”

“Tell Jonah to keep quiet,” Levi says with a dazzling grin, and we both follow him
into the woods.

14

The sunlight dapples
through the trees as we move deeper and deeper into the forest. I never would have
dared to go this far, away from the dome, away from my friends, if not for Levi. He
is intent on his mission and I am content to follow, along with Jonah, who seems thrilled
with the new sights and sounds. Birds flit from tree to tree and call out warnings
while small creatures that Levi quietly identifies as squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks
scatter through the low brush as we silently creep on a thick covering of fallen leaves
and pine needles, which send up a fragrant bouquet with every step. Everywhere I look
there is a new sight, a new sound, and a new word to add to my ever-expanding vocabulary.