We’re in a tiny courtyard, surrounded on all sides by the stained gray sides of the Crypts. The grass here is amazingly lush, reaching practically to my knees. A single tree twists upward to our left, and a bird is twittering in its branches. It’s surprisingly nice out here, peaceful and pretty—strange to be standing in the middle of a little garden while enclosed by the massive stone walls of the prison, like being at the exact center of a hurricane, and finding peace and silence in the middle of so much shrieking damage.
Alex has moved several paces away. He is standing, head bowed, with his eyes on the ground. He must have a sense too of the peacefulness here, the stillness that seems to hang in the air like a veil, covering everything in softness and rest. The sky above us is darker than it was when we first entered the Crypts: Against all the grayness and shadow, the grass stands vivid and electric, as though it is lit up from inside. It will rain at any second. It has to. I have the sensation of the world holding its breath before a giant exhale, balancing, teetering, about to let go.
“Here.” Alex’s voice rings out, surprisingly loud, and it startles me. “Right here.” He points to a shard of rock sticking up crookedly from the ground. “That’s where my father is.”
The grass is broken up by dozens of these rocks, which at first glance appeared to be naturally, haphazardly arranged. Then I realize that they’ve been deliberately tamped down into the earth. Some of them are covered in fading black markings, mostly illegible, although on one stone I recognize the word RICHARD and on another DIED.
Tombstones, I realize, as the purpose of the courtyard dawns on me. We’re standing in the middle of a graveyard.
Alex is staring down at a large chunk of concrete, as flat as a tablet, pressed down into the earth in front of his feet. All the writing is visible here, the words neatly printed in what looks like black marker, their edges slightly blurred as though someone has been continuously retracing them over a long period of time. It says WARREN SHEATHES, R.I.P.
“Warren Sheathes,” I say. I want to reach out and slip my hand into Alex’s, but I don’t think we’re safe. There are a few windows surrounding the courtyard on the ground floor, and even though they are thickly coated in grime, someone could walk by at any moment, look out, and see us. “Your father?”
Alex nods, then shakes his shoulders, a sudden movement as though trying to jerk himself away from sleep. “Yeah.”
“He was here?”
One side of Alex’s mouth quirks up into a smile, but the rest of his face remains stony. “For fourteen years.” He draws a slow circle in the dirt with his toe, the first physical sign of discomfort or distraction he has given since we arrived. In that moment I am in awe of him: Since I’ve known him he has done nothing but support me and give me comfort and listen to me, and all this time he has been carrying the weight of his own secrets too.
“What happened?” I ask quietly. “I mean, what did he . . . ?” I trail off. I don’t want to push the issue.
Alex glances at me quickly and looks away. “What did he do?” he says. The hardness has returned to his voice. “I don’t know. What all the people who end up in Ward Six do. He thought for himself. Stood up for what he believed in. Refused to give in.”
“Ward Six?”
Alex avoids my eyes carefully. “The dead ward,” he says quietly. “For political prisoners, mostly. They’re kept in solitary confinement. And no one ever gets released.” He gestures around him, to the other shards of stone poking up through the grass, dozens of makeshift graves. “Ever,” he repeats, and I think of the sign on the door: LIFERS, HA HA.
“I’m so sorry, Alex.” I would give anything to touch him, but the best I can do is inch closer to him so that our skin is separated by only a few inches.
He looks at me then, shooting me a sad smile. “He and my mom were only sixteen when they met. Can you believe that? She was only eighteen when she had me.” He drops into a squat and traces his father’s name with his thumb. I suddenly understand that the reason he comes here so often is to continue darkening the letters as they fade, to keep some record of his father. “They wanted to run away together, but he was caught before they could finalize a plan. I never knew he’d been taken into custody. I just thought he was dead. My mom thought it would be better for me, and nobody in the Wilds knew enough to correct her. I think for my mom it was easier to believe he had really died. She didn’t want to think of him rotting in this place.” He continues looping a finger over the letters, back and forth. “My aunt and uncle told me the truth when I turned fifteen. They wanted me to know. I came here to meet him, but . . .” I think I see Alex shudder, a sudden stiffening movement of his shoulders and back. “Anyway, it was too late. He was dead, had been dead for a few months, and buried here, where his remains wouldn’t contaminate anything.”
I feel sick. The walls appear to be pressing closer around us, growing taller and narrower, too, so the sky feels more and more remote, an ever-diminishing point. We’ll never get out, I think, and then take a deep breath, trying to stay calm.
Alex straightens up. “Ready?” he asks me, for the second time this morning. I nod, even though I’m not sure that I am. He allows himself the brief flicker of a smile, and I see, for a second, a bit of warmth spark up in his eyes. Then he’s all business again.
I take one last look at the tombstone before we go in. I try to think of a prayer or something appropriate to say, but nothing comes to me. The lessons of the scientists aren’t really clear about what happens when you die: Supposedly you dissipate into the heavenly matter that is God, and get absorbed by him, although they also tell us that the cured go to heaven and live forever in perfect harmony and order.
“Your name.” I spin around to face Alex. He has already moved past me, headed back for the door. “Alex Warren.”
He gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Assigned to me,” he says.
“Your real name is Alex Sheathes,” I say, and he nods. He has a secret name, just like me. We stand there for one more moment, looking at each other, and in that instant I feel our connection so strongly it’s as though it achieves physical existence, becomes a hand all around us, cupping us together, protecting us. This is what people are always talking about when they talk about God: this feeling, of being held and understood and protected. Feeling this way seems about as close to saying a prayer as you could get, so I follow Alex back inside, holding my breath as we again encounter that awful stink.
I follow Alex down a series of serpentine hallways. The sensation of stillness and peace I had in the courtyard is replaced almost immediately by fear so sharp it is like a blade going straight into the core of me, driving down and deep, until I can hardly breathe or keep going. At points the wailing grows louder, almost to a fever pitch, and I have to cover my ears; then it ebbs away again. Once we pass a man wearing a long white lab coat, stained with what looks like blood; he is leading a patient on a leash. Neither one looks at us as we pass.
We make so many twists and turns I’m beginning to wonder if Alex is lost, especially as the hallways grow dirtier, and the lights above us become fewer in number, so that eventually we are walking through murk and obscurity, with a single functioning bulb to light up twenty feet of blackened stone corridor. At intervals various glowing neon signs appear in the darkness, as though they are rising out of the air itself: WARD ONE, WARD TWO, WARD THREE, WARD FOUR. Alex keeps going, though, and when we pass the hallway that leads to Ward Five I call out to him, convinced he has gotten confused or lost his way.
“Alex,” I say, but even as I say the word it strangles me, because just then we come up to a heavy set of double doors marked with a small sign, barely illuminated, so faint I can hardly read it. And yet it seems to burn as brightly as a thousand suns.
Alex turns around, and to my surprise his face isn’t composed at all. His jaw is working and his eyes are full of pain, and I can tell he hates himself for being there, for being the one to say it, for being the one to show me.
“I’m sorry, Lena,” he says. Above him the sign smolders in the darkness: WARD SIX.
Chapter Twenty-Two