CHAPTER 8
THEY HAD PLANNED to start at first light, but Rachel was awakened long before that. She heard Indigo’s voice coming from the main room.
“Bring him here. Be certain he has no weapons.”
Nandy was sitting up in her bed, listening too. She looked at Rachel.
“Let’s go.”
Neither had undressed completely the night before; Nandy had said they would need to be ready to go quickly, so they had kept all but jackets and shoes on. In two minutes they were out of bed and in the hut’s main room.
Indigo and Malgam were seated at the table. Pathik was lighting oil jars. The room was chilly; the fire had died during the night and they wouldn’t be building one this morning—they planned to be gone soon. Nandy sent a questioning look to Malgam.
“The far-station sentries found a man wandering. He says he’s looking for you, Rachel.” Malgam sounded irritated.
“It must be Jonathan!” Rachel sat down hard; she felt oddly dizzy. Jonathan. Here, in the camp.
“Rachel.” Nandy knelt in front of her. “Who is Jonathan? Are you afraid he’ll hurt you?” She touched Rachel’s cheek gently, tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. “We won’t let anyone hurt you if we can stop them, Rachel.”
Rachel smiled, and shook her head.
“He’s my friend. He works for Ms. Moore on The Property. He’s always watched out for me.”
There was a soft knock on the door.
“Enter.” Indigo and Malgam rose from their chairs. Rachel stood too, and hastily swiped at her hair. She knew she must look a mess.
The door opened, and two men entered, holding a third by his arms. Rachel was about to protest, to tell them to let Jonathan go, when she saw the third man’s face. She took a step back, and toppled right into Pathik, who was still standing behind her. He caught her.
“What’s wrong?” He whispered in her ear, holding her steady against him.
Rachel didn’t take her eyes off of the man. “It’s not Jonathan,” she whispered back. She felt Pathik’s arms tighten around her. Then he released her, and moved to her side. Indigo, who had been watching the man, turned and noticed Rachel’s face. After a moment’s deliberation he stepped in front of her, blocking the man’s view of her. Rachel peeked cautiously past him.
“Who are you?” Indigo waited for the man to speak.
The man looked tired. There were streaks of dirt on his face, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
“Like I told your men, I’m part of the collaboration. Do you know about the collaboration?” The man looked from Indigo to Malgam. “I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
“The sentries say you were asking about a girl. A girl from your side.” Malgam crossed his arms and stared coldly.
“Yes.” The man appraised Malgam. He didn’t seem overly impressed. “I need to find her. She may have documents that are crucial to the collaboration.”
“I’m told that the government doesn’t let just anyone Cross. Why would they let a girl?” Malgam lifted his chin and looked down his nose at the man. “How,” he asked, “did you Cross?”
Rachel reached out without looking away from the man and found Pathik’s hand. She took hold of it and squeezed hard. Pathik squeezed back, but he too kept his eyes on the man.
“I had a key.”
“Traitor!” Rachel let go of Pathik’s hand and pushed past Indigo to stand in front of the man. “Liar!” Her face was red, her fists clenched at her sides, and she was shaking. It took everything she had to hold back from leaping on the man and tearing at him.
The man stared, stunned by her fury.
Rachel stared back. She seemed to be unaware of any other person in the room. Pathik went to her and carefully touched her shoulder.
“Rachel.” He turned her toward him and she moved stiffly, like a mannequin. “Is he Peter? The man you told me about?”
Rachel tore her eyes from the man, to meet Pathik’s. She nodded.
“Who else could he be?” Rachel had never actually seen Peter, but this man knew her name. He knew she had the maps. It had to be Peter.
Pathik looked at the man.
“Are you Peter?”
The man nodded, relieved.
“Yes. I’m Rachel’s mother’s friend.”
“Friend,” spat Rachel, her lip curled in disgust. “You’re no friend of my mother’s. Though she thought you were.” She turned away from him, to the Others.
“This man betrayed my mother when she asked for help. He called the EOs and led them to Ms. Moore’s the night we had to Cross. He’s the reason I had to Cross at all. We planned to use his key to disable the Line just long enough to put the medicine and other supplies on the other side. That way Pathik could get them and go.” Rachel glared at Peter again, as if she could hurt him with her eyes. “You said you had a key. You said you’d bring it to us.”
Peter shook his head. “I never called the EOs. They must have flagged me, Rachel. They followed me there, to that house where your mother was. I never planned to hurt her, or you.”
Rachel shook her head. “You’re lying. You wanted to trade my mother for your wife and daughter.” She walked away, back to the table, where she sat with her back to the room. Pathik remained where he was, eyeing Peter.
“Did you use your key to Cross? The key you promised to bring to Rachel and her mother?” Pathik looked disgusted.
Peter shook his head again. He raised his hands, palms up, in front of him. “I had the key in my pocket that night. But Vivian said Rachel had run away. She didn’t want the key anymore. I did want the maps, because I thought that I might be able to use them to bargain with the government—they took my wife and my child. That’s the only thing I wanted from your mom, Rachel. And when she told me that you had them with you, I was frantic. I guessed that you must have Crossed somehow when the EOs couldn’t scan your genid that night. If you’d really just run away, they would have picked you up on a scan.”
“What maps? What are you talking about?” Indigo had moved forward to stand next to Pathik.
“Daniel—Rachel’s father—was given some maps to protect, maps that are very valuable to the collaboration. When he died—”
“My father’s alive.” Rachel shifted in her seat, so that she could see Peter’s face. She felt some small satisfaction when it drained of color.
“What do you mean, alive?” Peter looked astonished. His tone made Rachel look at him more carefully. She studied him, trying to find a false note that would reveal his deceit, but it really did seem to her that Peter sounded genuinely . . . hopeful.
THEY QUESTIONED PETER thoroughly. He managed to convince Indigo and Malgam, at least, that he intended no treachery. Rachel wasn’t so sure. Finally, Malgam took Peter off to find him some clean clothes and some food. They had decided to allow him, after much pleading, to come on the rescue mission. There were only a few hours left until they had to set out.
“He wasn’t lying, at least not that I could feel.” Pathik looked almost apologetic; he knew Rachel believed Peter was lying. But he’d been searching the man’s emotions as he told his story, and his gift told him otherwise.
“Maybe there really was a misunderstanding,” said Indigo. “We’ll watch him closely. For now, I think we’d all better go back to bed.”
As Rachel turned to go to the room she had been sharing with Nandy, he spoke her name.
“Stay with me for a bit, Rachel.” Indigo sat at the table and motioned for her to join him
As she sat down, Rachel noticed a small vase on the table, next to the oil lamp. It hadn’t been there when she went to sleep. It held a flower, a flower that drew her to it like a magnet, because it was an orchid.
“Where did this come from?”
“I picked it.” Indigo smiled at Rachel’s expression. “We have wild ones here, Rachel. At least, we do now.”
Rachel gently touched a velvet petal. “When I was working for Ms. Moore I read about varieties that could grow in fairly harsh conditions. This one is not like any I’ve seen before—” Rachel looked at Indigo. “What do you mean, now?”
“We never had orchids here. I brought some with me when I came back. She . . . Elizabeth sent them with me. I had to work pretty hard to get them to naturalize, but they did.” He admired the flower—a deep, red-black lady slipper shape. “They are quite lovely in their own strange way, aren’t they?”
“They are.” Rachel wondered where the orchids grew here. She wanted to see them.
“Rachel, what are these maps that Peter talked about? Do you know?”
“Yes. Well, no. I know that they are maps of some sort, but they don’t really look like any maps I’ve seen before. They look more like sets of specifications, or something. All I really know is that my mother told me to keep them safe.”
“And do you feel like they are? Safe?”
Rachel thought about where the maps were, tucked away in her bag. She nodded at Indigo. She wondered to herself if she should move them someplace else.
“Good enough.” Indigo smiled at her. “You should probably get some rest now. We leave very soon.”
INDIGO SAT ADMIRING the orchid blossom long after Rachel had left the room. He too reached out to touch the tender bloom. Funny how something as simple as a flower could bring a certain grace to this rough existence. Elizabeth had helped him see that beauty came in all forms, and showed him its transformative powers. He’d tried hard to integrate that into his life since he’d come back. He knew he’d failed, in comparison to what she could have done.
He reached into his pocket and took out the envelope he had been carrying since Rachel gave it to him. He looked at his name again, written in her hand, and then he ripped it open.
Indigo,
I should have come with you. I know that now.
I’m so sorry. Elizabeth
Indigo smiled. That was so like her. To know that very little needed to be said in order to say it all.
I know that now. Those four words made him sad. What must she be suffering, knowing that she had made the wrong decision all those years ago? Knowing that she couldn’t change her mind. He had known immediately what they had found in each other. She had too, but . . .
Indigo crumpled the letter in his hand. But what? But she was too young? Too inexperienced? Too cowardly. He hated it when he thought of her that way, but sometimes, he couldn’t help it. They could have been together, all these years. And his son might not be so hard, so ready to believe that people couldn’t be trusted. He’d tried many times to explain to Malgam that a mother’s lack of courage didn’t mean a lack of love, but even he didn’t really believe that. It was something he struggled with often. He knew Elizabeth had loved Malgam. He’d seen it in her eyes when she held him. But that love hadn’t given her the courage to Cross. She’d let her son grow up motherless, far from her, because of her own fears.
His sour mood didn’t last. After a few minutes he smoothed the letter and fitted it back into its envelope. Then, he rose stiffly from the table and took himself to bed.