Children of Exile (15 page)

He was right. I couldn't.

“I don't think you'll be able to see until the moon's all the way out, but probably a hundred houses burned here,” Edwy said. “And it was a long time ago here, too, because some of
the ruined houses have trees growing out of the middle of them. And it doesn't look like anybody has tried to rebuild.”

I stood up. The moon was still half hidden, but there was enough light now that the hillocks and bumps ahead of me were transformed into fallen beams and collapsed, half-burned walls. We were in a wasteland, a cemetery of old, dead, decaying houses.

“What happened to all the people who lived here?” I asked. “Did they leave after their houses burned, and they never came back?”

“Or,” Edwy whispered, “did they all die?”

What Edwy
was suggesting was too horrible to think about. People didn't die in fires. They had smoke detectors. They had fire departments. They had family escape plans that they practiced each year on Fire Safety Day.

At least people in Fredtown had had all that.

“If there were a hundred houses here,” I said, “that would have been hundreds and hundreds of people. . . .”

I'd had trouble holding back a shiver before. Now my whole body trembled.

Edwy put his arm around me, just like he would have done when we were little.

“Maybe I'm wrong,” he said. “Maybe I don't know anything.”

He waited, like he expected me to agree that he was both ignorant and stupid.

I couldn't speak.

“Maybe I shouldn't have brought you here,” he said. “Maybe I should have kept it to myself.”

I drew in a choked breath. I thought of Bobo, sleeping so innocently back at the parents' house.

“No, no, I think I needed to know.” I swallowed hard. “We both need to know what to protect the other kids against.”

“What if we can't protect anyone?” Edwy whispered. “Not even ourselves?”

I jerked away from him.

“We
can
,” I said. “We have to. We'll find out everything, and then we'll . . . we'll move everyone back to Fredtown, if that's what it takes. We'll keep all the kids safe. Including ourselves.”

I didn't even recognize my own voice. I sounded fierce and strong. And tough. It wasn't very Fred-like of me.

Edwy took a step back.

“Rosi . . . ,” he began. Then he flinched and grabbed my arm and pulled me down low against the ground.

“Someone's coming,” he whispered in my ear.

We smashed ourselves flat against ash and dirt. A log—which maybe had once been a ceiling beam—lay between us and the sound of footsteps off in the distance.

“I don't know why we had to come way out here,” a man's voice complained. “Nobody's watching us. Everybody I know is too busy changing diapers and listening to babies cry, now that we've got the children back.”

“Don't you remember anything from before?” a second man asked. “From the last time? We were so close to succeeding!”

“Yeah, and it was those Freds who stopped us,” the first man answered. “We don't have to worry about
them
anymore.”

My heart gave a little leap of dismay. I didn't know what these men were talking about. They spoke as carelessly and cruelly as the men who'd brought us from Fredtown, but I'd seen those men leaving with the plane. Like they were supposed to. These men seemed to be from my hometown; they'd said, “We've got the children back.”

And, listening in the darkness, I could hear that there was a difference in the way these men pronounced their words. A different accent. The men on the plane had made their words into weapons, sharp and cutting and so different from the gentle way Freds talked. But the mother, the father, these men—really, everyone I'd encountered in my hometown—they all spoke as if they had burrs or thistles in their mouths. Something painful they had to talk around.

What happened the “last time,” when these men were “so close to succeeding”? Was it something dating back twelve years?

I couldn't be sure. But if the Freds had stopped them before, I was almost certain I would want the Freds to stop them now.

“The trick is to achieve victory in one fell swoop,” the other man said. “Before the enemy knows what's happening.”

“And that's why we're meeting out here,” a third voice said, in a way that seemed to settle the argument. “So the enemy has no warning.”

For a moment I could hear nothing but the thud of footsteps. Were the three men going to find us? Should we start crawling away?

The footsteps veered off to the right. I heard the creak of a door opening and closing. I started to sit up, but Edwy pulled me back down.

“Shh,” he hissed. “There's more coming. Can't you hear them?”

Now I did. Was this a larger group? Or just louder? It was hard to separate out the sound of individual footsteps, but I guessed there might have been five or six people headed our way now.

“Have you seen how those kids look at you?” A voice floated toward us. “Especially
certain
ones. The enemy's children. It's like they're not afraid of anyone or anything.”

“They've got no respect,” someone else said, like he was agreeing.

“We'll show them,” a voice replied. “They'll learn to fear us.”

Someone else laughed, in a way that shot chills through me.

“We can't let them hurt anybody,” I whispered to Edwy.

Edwy replied by putting his hand over my mouth. When
I could hear the footsteps veer to the right, just like the last time, Edwy slid his hand away.

“We can't let them find us here,” he whispered.

“Should we tell our parents?” I asked. I remembered that Edwy's parents were, by his own admission, thieves. I remembered that my own mother had slapped me. “Should we get the police?”

“Have you seen any police since we got here?” Edwy hissed at me.

I remembered the mob scene at the airport when our plane landed. I remembered being afraid that someone could be trampled to death.

If there hadn't been police there then, where would they be?

Could a town function without anyone enforcing rules?

“There was a shack still kind of half standing out there in the middle of a lot of other junk,” Edwy whispered. “I bet that's where they're meeting. You go home and be safe. I'll go listen to what they say, and I'll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“Edwy, I'm not going home to be safe while you're still here in danger!” I whispered back to him.

“But—I want you to be safe,” Edwy said.

“We'll go over there and listen together,” I said.

For a moment Edwy just stared at me; then he frowned and nodded.

“Come on, then,” he said, his voice rough.

We tiptoed over the fallen beam and crept forward, stepping gingerly. Edwy took my arm again and I almost told him,
No, that doesn't make sense. If one of us falls, we'll just pull the other one down, too.
But it was nice not to feel totally alone in the darkness and the wreckage. I kept my mouth shut.

The moon came fully out from behind yet another cloud, and I could see a shadowy heap in front of us. This must have been the shack Edwy was talking about. But it seemed to be surrounded by random boards and beams and other garbage. I wondered how we could pick our way through to the shack without making noise. Or tripping and falling and getting hurt.

Just then something cracked beneath our feet. Both of us froze.

For a moment it seemed like nothing was going to happen. Then the door of the shack swung open, spilling light out onto the ruins. It was only a dim glow—from candlelight, probably—and I let out a silent, shaky sigh. Edwy and I were in no danger from such a weak, distant light.

Then someone in the shack switched on a flashlight. The beam shot off into the distance, off to the north. But whoever was controlling the flashlight beam began rotating it, turning it toward us.

And Edwy cried way too loudly into my ear: “Run!”

We raced toward
the creek path, scrambling over logs and burned beams, tripping and immediately pulling each other back up.

Was someone chasing us already—closing in on us—or were we just hearing the echoes of our own footsteps? Everything seemed too loud: our feet slapping against the ground, twigs snapping underfoot, my own breathing rasping in and out, my own pulse thudding in my ears.

“Put your hands up over your face so you won't get scratches!” Edwy hissed at me. “So they can't identify us that way!”

He thought we could escape. He thought we should worry about getting scrapes and scratches on our faces, which would be noticeable tomorrow.

I'd always thought Edwy was so gloomy and pessimistic, but I felt grateful to him for being able to think so hopefully, even as we ran. Even though
I
was certain we
were about to be caught, I put my hands up, and a second later began to feel branches and leaves and twigs slashing them.

“Good call,” I tried to mutter to Edwy, but was rewarded with a mouthful of leaves.

I angled my hands differently, spread my fingers wider, and kept running.

The moon went behind a cloud again, and I was torn between gratitude that now we were harder to see and fear because now I couldn't see either. The loss of moonlight did make me notice dimmer lights up ahead, off to the side of the creek.

“That's the start of the houses that people still live in,” Edwy whispered in my ear. “Your street is the third one in. We'll split apart there—you sneak home as quietly as you can, and I'll make some noise so we're sure they keep following me instead.”

“Edwy,
no
,” I objected, trying not to pant. “I don't want you in danger either.”

Edwy didn't say anything for a few seconds. I hoped he was coming up with a safer plan. We reached the third street in, and suddenly he turned and yelled into the darkness behind us: “You can't catch me!”

“Edwy!” I protested.

“Too late to complain about my plan now,” he said. He
shoved me toward my street. “Now go! Fast! Don't waste the chance I just gave you!”

I was so mad at Edwy.

Fredtown customs would have required me to stand there and talk out my anger until it was gone—and until I'd convinced him to work with me on a totally different plan, one that was safe for both of us. But he was already several steps ahead of me, crashing noisily into the creek. Crashing noisily
on purpose.

“Think of . . . your brother!” he called back to me. “What would happen to him if you got caught? Go!”

That Edwy—he was going to keep yelling and attracting attention as long as I stood there. I turned and ran away from the creek, toward my street. And then, because running was too loud, as soon as I reached the first house I slipped silently into the shadows it cast off to the side. I tiptoed behind it, and then around the back of the next house. And the next. And the next.

I could hear noise from back at the creek, but it wasn't very loud.

The men who'd been chasing us—and were still chasing Edwy—evidently didn't want to be heard either. I could make out the swish of branches being pushed aside and swiped away, but maybe to the people in the nearest houses it only sounded like a peaceful breeze moving leaves around.
Maybe Edwy splashing out into the creek had sounded like possums or fish or even snakes—who would want to investigate that? The only really loud noise had been Edwy shouting, “You can't catch me!” And even that might be dismissed as children playing. The father and the mother hadn't wanted me to go out after dark, but maybe other parents didn't care. Maybe it'd been so long since most of the town had been around children, they wouldn't be surprised at all to hear kids out playing in the middle of the night. . . .

All the way home, tiptoeing and creeping and darting from shadow to shadow, I kept telling myself that Edwy was smart and careful enough to make it home safely too. Maybe he was making noise on one side of the creek and then silently darting back to the other. Maybe he was already turning down his own street. Maybe he was going faster than me. Maybe he was already home, safe in his own bed.

It was kind of easier to worry about Edwy than to worry about myself.

My street was creepier than ever in the darkness, now that I was alone. Its jumbled, broken-down houses cast eerie shadows. Once or twice I stopped moving entirely and told myself I was only being cautious, plotting my next step. Really, I was paralyzed with fear.

The mother and the father seemed so afraid of letting me go to the airport to pick up the suitcases after dark. . . . They
were so terrified of Edwy's knock at the door before they knew it was Edwy. . . . What if the men chasing us just now understood that Edwy was trying to trick them? What if they knew to turn down this street and follow me?

I forced myself to start tiptoeing again with the same words that Edwy had shouted to me back at the creek:
Think of your brother! What would happen to him if you got caught?

Finally, I just focused on my brother's name with every step:

Bobo.

Bobo.

Bobo.

I reached my own house. I didn't care that it looked like it might fall down at any minute. I didn't care that it needed paint. All I wanted was to get back through that door. I pushed it open, grateful that I'd left it unlatched.

The hinges squeaked again. In the darkness, they sounded as loud as the yowling of a cat, as loud as Edwy screaming, “You can't catch me!”

Only this was like the hinges screaming,
You can catch me! Catch me now!

I waited, listening for the parents' snore. There was one of them—fluttery and faltering and furious, even in sleep. The mother's. I listened for the father's deeper, gruffer snore too.