“The point isn’t the pin, Alex, the point is—”
“How big was it?” Louder now, and forceful.
“I don’t know. Like the size of a thumb, maybe.” I’m completely baffled by Alex’s behavior. He has the most pained look on his face, as though he’s trying to swallow a whole porcupine. “It was originally my grandfather’s—made just for him, a reward for performing a special service for the government. Unique. That’s what my dad always said, anyway.”
Alex doesn’t say anything for a minute. He turns away, and with the moon shining down on him, and his profile so hard and straight, he could be built out of stone. I’m glad he’s not staring at me anymore, though. He was starting to freak me out.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks finally, slowly, as though every word is an effort.
It seems like a weird thing to ask in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation, and I start to get annoyed. “Were you even listening to me?”
“Lena, please.” There it is: the strangled, choking note again. “Just answer me. Are you working?”
“Not until Saturday.” I rub my arms. The wind blowing in has a chilly edge to it. It lifts the hair on my arms, makes goose bumps prick up on my legs. Autumn is coming. “Why?”
“You have to meet me. I have—I have something to show you.” Alex turns back to me again, and his eyes are so wild and black, his face so unfamiliar-looking, I take a step backward.
“You’ll have to do better than that.” I try to laugh, but what comes out is a little gurgling sound. I’m scared, I want to say. You’re scaring me. “Can you at least give me a hint?”
Alex takes a deep breath, and for a minute I think he won’t answer me.
But he does.
“Lena,” he says at last. “I think your mother is alive.”
Chapter Twenty-One
LIBERTY IN ACCEPTANCE;
PEACE IN ENCLOSURE;
HAPPINESS IN RENUNCIATION
—words carved above the gates
at the entrance to the Crypts
When I was in fourth grade, I went on a field trip to the Crypts. It’s mandated that every child visit at least once in elementary school as part of the government’s anticrime, antiresistance education. I don’t remember much about my visit except for a feeling of utter terror, a dim impression of coldness, of blackened concrete hallways, slicked with mold and moisture, and heavy electronic doors. To be honest, I think I’ve successfully blocked out most of the memory. The whole purpose of the trip was to traumatize us into staying on the straight-and-narrow, and they definitely had the traumatize part right.
What I do remember is stepping out afterward into the bright sunshine of a beautiful spring day with a sense of overwhelming, overpowering relief—and also confusion, as I realized that in order to exit the Crypts we actually had to descend several staircases to the ground floor. The whole time we’d been inside, even as we climbed, I had the impression of being buried underground, locked several stories under the surface of the earth. That’s how dark it was, how close and bad-smelling: like being encased in a coffin with rotting bodies. I also remember that as soon as we got outside Liz Billmun began to cry, just sob right there while a butterfly flapped around her shoulder, and we were all in shock because Liz Billmun was super tough, and kind of a bully, and hadn’t even cried the time she broke her ankle in gym class.
I had sworn that day that I would never, ever return to the Crypts for any reason. But the morning after my conversation with Alex I’m standing outside its gates, pacing, one arm wrapped around my stomach. I wasn’t able to force anything down this morning except the thick black sludge my uncle calls coffee, a decision I am now regretting. I feel like acid is eating my insides.
Alex is late.