Once they’d passed the Bath, Dave said, “Here.” He handed Cal a whistle on a string.
“Put this on,” he said. “We’ll go over the calls in a few minutes.”
Cal nodded. The whistle felt good around his neck.
“Also this,” Dave said. He was giving Cal his gun back.
“I cleaned it,” Sailor said. He grinned as he passed Cal a small box. “More bullets.”
Cal nodded, clutching the gun. He tucked it into the back of his pants and put the bullets in his pocket.
“Ours are in the Tower,” Sailor said. Guns, Cal realized.
Cal had always wondered what it might be like to climb a water tower. The ladder, with those semicircles of metal jutting out every few rungs, as if they might keep anyone safe. Each platform was another dare. Are you sure you want to climb higher? As a kid, Cal wondered how scary it might be to reach the top. Did the whole thing rattle in the wind, sing like shaky old bridges did?
This Tower was built of splintery wood, and its sawdust smell made him think of fall carnivals and pumpkin patches. The ladder reminded him not so much of a water tower but of the high dive at the local pool his mom would take him to during the summer. Damp. No frills. Possibly unsafe. But once you were up there, you definitely couldn’t turn back, or you’d run the risk of embarrassing yourself in front of the kids below. He understood why Dave and Sailor had told him to go first.
Up, up, up he went. When Dave started climbing, the whole tower seemed to sag with the added weight. Up, up.
When he got to the top, he didn’t look over the edge. Not yet. The Tower’s room was a small turret, with walls that went chest high. The floor was crowded with a bucket of rifles, a pile of coats, some miners’ helmets with flashlights attached, a megaphone, and a bedpan. Empty, thank God. From a hook hung the binoculars he’d seen Peter and Dave using the first time he’d caught sight of them.
Once Sailor and Dave had reached the top, Cal finally allowed himself to look out. The moon had been full the night before, so there was some light. From here, the Land seemed almost puny. Just that one strip of buildings, and the field with its barn, garden, and showers. Encircling it all were the Forms. From here, Cal could see where they ended.
Beyond all this: trees and more trees. They were tall, and in the dark their greenery turned woolly. To the east, a speck of orange firelight pulsed. Cal blinked and saw, farther out, a second fire.
“There,” Sailor said, pointing north, “the old highway cuts through.”
“Where does it lead?” Cal asked. He suddenly felt vulnerable. He didn’t know what was beyond the Land, and he didn’t know if he could trust the people who did.
Dave smirked and said they better go over the whistle calls.
If Cal saw anything suspicious in the Forms, he was to blow one long whistle. “Do it until you’ve run out of breath. Your job on security is simple: to watch for outsiders and to alert us if anyone tries to enter the Forms. You’re patrolling for anything out of the ordinary. And I mean anything. If we end up going nuts about a rogue raccoon, so be it.”
“We also have arm signals for the daytime,” Sailor said, “but they won’t do you any good while it’s dark.”
“For tonight you only really need that one call,” Dave said. “The others you can learn later.”
As soon as the lesson ended, Dave walked to the other side of the platform, scanning with the binoculars. He pulled a walkie-talkie out of his jacket and began exchanging observations with someone in the Forms. The reception was scratchy, and Cal didn’t recognize the person’s voice. He had only just learned of the walkie-talkies that morning. August was going to lobby for a few more sets from Pines, plus more batteries.
What wouldn’t they ask for?
“No women ever want to come up here, and do this job?” Cal asked. “I mean, come on, everyone digs walkie-talkies.”
Sailor shrugged. “You assume this is a superior occupation.” He nodded at Dave, who was now watching the landscape. He looked like a dog, waiting for its owner to come home.
“Anything withheld long enough does start to seem better, don’t you think?” Cal said.
“You should write fortune cookies,” Sailor said.
Dave hushed them. “Guys. Focus.”
They fell silent and watched for movement as Dave had instructed. Cal kept his eyes roaming as Sailor explained that some of the Forms had been there long before anyone on the Land showed up. Cal held his breath as Sailor talked; he wondered if Frida had heard this before or if she’d learned a different history.
“But we built a whole lot more, and we designed it so that they’d form the maze you walked through,” Sailor explained. From above, they were spirals. “Some of the spirals are square shaped,” Sailor said. “Come up during the day, and you’ll see. There is order to it. And the glass in the ground? That was my idea. Saw it in Peru when I was six years old.”