FOUR
BLAINE BEING GONE IS KIND of like when Ma died, only this time I’m alone for good. I spend the first few days forgetting his absence is permanent. I catch myself looking up from dinner, expecting to find him walking through the door. I feel him moving through the house behind me, but when I twist around, the room is desolate and cold.
About two weeks in, when it begins to feel real and I know he’s not returning, I break down for the first and only time. I spend an entire evening in bed, muffling cries into my pillow. I don’t let anyone see it, but I’m terrified. I feel empty, as if half of me is gone, and I have no family left; Ma had a brother, who had a son, and both are long gone. I have Kale, I suppose, but I can’t be the father she needs. I’m not good with her the way Blaine was. I think the most sickening thought is that I only have a year left myself. I have one year until I’m eighteen and no one to even share it with.
In Claysoot I am a spectacle. People give me sympathetic looks and halfhearted smiles, as if they mean to say, “Oh, Gray, it’s all right.” I find peace in the woods. Amid the tree limbs and pinecones, I am free; no eyes follow me, no thoughts flood my mind. There, I feel like myself.
On the bright side, at least I was able to say good-bye to Blaine. I read a scroll in the library when I was younger that documented the phenomenon of the Heist. The people of Claysoot didn’t always know what it was. In fact, when the very first Heist took place, no one even realized until the following morning. It was Maude’s older brother, Bo Chilton, who mysteriously went missing. After a thorough search of the town and woods, he was declared dead even though a body was never found. It was odd, Bo disappearing like that, completely out of character. He was the eldest of the original children, their main leader. Calm. Smart. Responsible.
The day the originals opened their eyes to find their town in ruins, they panicked. They suspected a strong storm had been the culprit, knocking them unconscious in the process, but they couldn’t remember the bad weather rolling in. They couldn’t remember anything from before the disaster, and with the exception of siblings, they couldn’t even remember each other. In the blink of an eye, neighbors had become strangers.
Before the group could fall into chaos, it was Bo who rounded up tools and started rebuilding the community. He shook sense into the others, assigning each person a specific task. In a matter of months, the town was well on its way to recovering. The crops were nursed back to life. The fences around the livestock fields were refortified and the animals, which had wandered off into the woods, were corralled and brought back to town. Bo set up the Council, comprised of five heads elected by the community, and since no one could recall the name of their home, he even rechristened the place, slapping two words together that all too accurately described the makeup of most of the town’s earth. Clay-rusted roads, and a film of soot-like dirt so persistent it could only be avoided by escaping into the woods.
When the Wall was discovered, Bo volunteered to go over first and scout things out, but he was unable to see what lay on the other side. The view from a large oak tree in the northern portion of the woods yielded nothing but pitch blackness beyond the Wall, and he deemed it unsafe. He tried to talk others out of climbing, claiming the Wall was likely built to keep something at bay, but a few tried. Their bodies came back a charcoaled mess, burned and lifeless, and Bo’s assumptions were proven right.
Bo was the reason that the original children, wild and panic-stricken, were transformed into a united team capable of rebuilding their community. But there was still no explanation for his disappearance. A few months later, another boy went missing, and a week after that another. Eventually Maude noticed that the disappearances seemed to be happening to boys of a certain age. It was always the oldest one, and then, finally, she realized it was always the boy turning eighteen.
They ran the first experiment on Ryder Phoenix. He sat in the center of town on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, everyone else around him, and they waited. That was the first night they all witnessed it, felt the ground shake and saw the sky light up. That was the night they had proof.
Maude convinced the group to repeat the experiment. For the next several birthdays, the same thing happened. Boys disappeared, swiped from the town in a matter of seconds, and always on the morn of their eighteenth year. Each one was taken, stolen, lost to a consistent and time-specific Heist.
Once they understood this, some boys began to panic. A few tried to escape before their eighteenth birthday. They climbed the tree in the northern portion of the woods that grew close enough to the Wall to aid in their crossing, but they always reappeared. Dead. Most of the boys came to accept that the Heist was unavoidable. Maude took over for her brother as Head of the Council, and arranged the first-ever ceremony. While the Heist was inescapable, a preparation for it was not. With a ceremony everyone could at least say good-bye, something Maude was never able to do with her brother. With a ceremony, people could make peace.
I haven’t quite made peace with Blaine’s Heist, though. I’m not sure I ever will. I know it’s just the way life is, that part of living is dealing with the consequences of the Heist, but Blaine’s loss has made it personal. He’s gone and he’s never coming back. It feels wrong in a way I can’t quite pinpoint. Above all, it’s simply unfair.
There is a knock on my door and I’m pulled from my thoughts. It’s bright out, late morning. I should be hunting already, but I had dreams littered with Heists and my internal clock has been off since Blaine disappeared. I climb from bed, pull on a pair of pants, and answer the door.
“Well, good morning, you lazy moper,” Chalice greets me, her face abnormally chipper. She looks whole again, any damage I inflicted long gone.
“What do you want?”
“Maude wants to see you.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Great.” I slam the door in her face and a picture hanging on the wall crashes to the floor. I probably shouldn’t be so rude, but I’ve never liked Chalice. Unlike Blaine, I refuse to make excuses for her.
I stoop to collect the fallen frame, which houses a charcoal drawing of the Council building done by Blaine as a child. The frame has broken on impact, and as I collect the pieces, I notice something behind Blaine’s childhood sketch: a second piece of parchment that is coarse, but not as faded as the original artwork. I lift it from the debris and unfold it carefully.
It is a letter, written in script I would recognize anywhere.
To my eldest son, it begins. This is Ma’s handwriting, careful and clean. I take a deep breath and keep reading.
It is imperative that you read this, know this, and then hide it immediately. Gray cannot know. I have thought many times of how to share this with you—both of you—but have come to terms with this secret being one that you alone must bear after my passing. Know that I write this to you in my final hours, that I wish so much to be able to explain it in person, but I am a prisoner of my bed.
This world is a mysterious one, with its Heists and Wall, so unnatural that I have never been able to accept it outright. And I believe, come your eighteenth birthday, you will understand why I’ve shared this secret with you. The truth, or the pursuit of the truth, must not die with me. Above all, you must not tell your brother. I know this will be hard for you, but if Gray knows, he will look for answers. He will risk everything, and in turn jeopardize your discovering the truth. And you must. You must discover the truth for me because death will take me before I am able to witness it myself.
And so I share this with you now, my son: You and your brother are not as I’ve raised you to believe. Gray is, in fact—
I flip the letter over, but there are no more words. I search the debris on the floor, but whatever sheet once accompanied the first is no longer hidden within the frame. I reread the letter once, twice, several times over.
Gray is, in fact— I am, in fact, what? I race into the bedroom and throw open the chest that still holds Blaine’s things. I rifle through clothing and gear until my hands find a small journal, bound with stubborn twine. I flick through it noting the dates, and stop when I find the one where our mother passed. Blaine’s entry is short.
Carter had no magic left to spin and Ma died today. She left me a peculiar letter. It made me angry at first, and confused, but I realize now that I am incredibly fortunate—to have my brother with me still. Gray, who I value more with each passing day.
I hurl the journal back into the chest and return to the kitchen, where I clench the original letter from Ma in my fist. How dare they keep a secret that so clearly affects me. And now what? They are both gone and I am left alone in the dark without any answers. Whatever truth Ma had hoped would be revealed at Blaine’s Heist remains a mystery. Especially to me.
I read Ma’s note again, and again, and when I am boiling with feelings of resentment and betrayal, I storm from the house. I have to get away from the letter, as far away from it as possible, but then I remember Chalice’s original words, the ones that sparked its discovery, and I don’t get very far.
I stand before Maude’s house and take deep breaths. I let rage settle to anger and dwindle into irritation before I knock on her door. She opens it immediately and invites me in.
Maude’s place is one of the nicest in town. She has floorboards instead of dirt and her water basin has an attached handle that can actually be pumped to supply water. A kettle whistles over her fire as I enter, and the scent of fresh bread lingers in the air.
“Tea?” she asks as I take a seat at the kitchen table. I decline, probably not as politely as I should, and wait as she pours herself a cup of hot water and brews her herbs. She joins me at the table eventually, cautiously sipping the piping drink.
“You wanted to see me?” I ask.
“Yes, yes. I’ve got a name for you.” I know what this means and I don’t want to hear it. It’s the last thing I want to think about at the moment.
“I thought you said I didn’t have to deal with that for a little while.”
“It’s been nearly three weeks, Gray.” The steam from her tea rises, twisting delicately before her nose and blending in with her white hair before it continues toward the ceiling.
“Has it really?”
“Mhmm,” she hums in agreement.
“So who is it this time?” Here comes another month of awkward formality. Me, hanging out with some girl openly enough that Maude thinks I’m sleeping with her, and then trying to turn that same girl down when the opportunity actually arises. The latter part is harder than I expect sometimes, even with the potential of fatherhood at stake.
“If there’s someone you’d prefer to see, Gray, that’s fine,” she says. “But we have to make plans when we don’t see anything materializing naturally.”
If the slatings weren’t so pressured and formal, then maybe things would happen naturally. But for me, it’s just like when I was a little boy. Ma told Blaine and me not to play with fire, and because of that we did. On the other hand, if she had forced us to play with fire, we’d likely have entertained ourselves with rocks instead. And so it is with this. I’m uninterested in the fire they force on me. I don’t like being told what to do.
“Lately I only feel like myself when I’m in the woods,” I admit. “Nothing is going to materialize on its own.”
“Very well,” she says, placing her cup on the wooden table between us. “You’ve been slated to Emma Link for the next month. You know Emma, right? Carter’s girl? Works in the Clinic?”
A knot forms in my chest. “Yeah, I know her.”
“Good. Well that is all, Gray. You may go.”
I leave without thanking her. For the first time since shattering the frame, my mind shifts away from Ma’s secret. I should like this matchup, but I don’t. Emma isn’t just another girl. I don’t want to be with her because I’ve been told to. I want to be with her on my own terms and with her reciprocating that feeling, or not at all.
Perhaps it won’t even matter; Emma will likely reject me. It’s been rumored that she hasn’t accepted a single one of her slatings, that she turns them all away. Blaine’s friend Septum Tate, who was lost to the Heist a few months back, claimed Emma had actually lodged her knee into his groin when he refused to believe she truly meant no thank you. No one believed him. Mostly because Emma is so sweet, so gentle.
I look up to find my feet have subconsciously carried me to the Clinic. I suppose now is no worse a time than any to face her. I push open the doors and step inside.
Carter is attending to someone in the front of the room. I can make out their silhouettes through one of the thin curtains. Emma sits at a desk in the rear, scrawling something onto a piece of parchment. She is wearing a long white dress and her hair is gathered haphazardly atop her head. A few stray pieces fall into her eyes as she writes. I run a hand through my bangs anxiously and then march back to her desk, plopping myself in the seat opposite her without an invitation.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” she says, barely looking up. “Do you need help with something?”
“No.” I’m still trying to work out what to say. Maybe coming to the Clinic was a bad idea. Maybe I should avoid Emma for the month.
“Then what are you doing here?” She puts her quill down and folds her arms across her chest. She looks pretty when she’s cross.
“I’ve been slated to you,” I say. There, it’s out.
“Oh, is that all? Good. I’m not interested.” She picks the quill up again and returns to writing.
“Yeah, I know. I was just hoping I could get the truth out of the way so that we can actually enjoy spending the next month together.”
She looks at me, confusion on her face. “I’m not sure you heard me, Gray. I’m not interested. We won’t be spending any time together.”
“See that’s the thing, Emma; I don’t want to be a father. Not in a million years. I don’t want to end up like Blaine, leaving a kid behind. And you’re not interested. You’ve made that clear. But the Council still wants me slated to you, and if we hang out for a few weeks, they’ll think we’re doing what they want us to, and then they’ll be off our backs. Heck, I could probably even convince them to keep me slated to you for several months, and then you won’t have to deal with matchups at all.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her dark eyes searching mine. I’m not sure what she’s looking for or what she’s thinking. She’s too good at being blank.
“Okay,” she says finally. “It’s a deal. What do you want to do?”
“What, right now?”
“Yes, right now.” She smiles, ever so slightly. It causes that pain in my chest, that heave I get when she looks at me, to pulse.
“We can do anything. What do you want to do?”
“Let’s go to the pond,” she says, putting her things away.
“What pond?”
“The pond. The only one. The one near that field of purple bellflowers.”
“That’s more of a lake.”
“Oh, it’s a pond in my mind. Come on, let’s get out of here.” And then she’s grabbing my hand and pulling me from the Clinic. I guess I won’t be hunting today.