We reach the first encampment just before midnight on the third day, after a last-minute confusion about heading east or west at the large overturned tree lying gutted, roots exposed to the sky, which Roach had marked with a red bandanna. We waste an hour going the wrong way and have to double back, but as soon as we spot the small pyramid of stones Roach and Buck piled together to mark the place where the food is buried, there is general celebration. We run, shouting, the last fifty feet to the small clearing, full of renewed energy.
The plan was to stay here for a day, two tops, but Raven thinks we should camp out longer, and try to trap what we can. It is getting colder and will be increasingly difficult to find small game, and we do not have enough food to make it all the way south.
Now it is safe to set up our tents. For a while it is possible to forget we’re on the run, forget we’ve lost members of our group, forget about all the supplies we left back at the homestead. We light a fire; we sit in its glow, warm our hands, and tell one another stories to distract ourselves from the cold and the hunger, from the air, which smells like coming snow.
now
Tell me a story.”
“What?” Julian’s voice startles me. He’s been sitting in silence for hours. I’ve been pacing again, thinking about Raven and Tack. Did they escape the demonstration? Will they think I’ve been hurt, or killed? Will they come looking for me?
“I said, tell me a story.” He’s sitting on his cot, legs crossed. I’ve noticed he can sit like that for hours, eyes half-closed, like he’s meditating. His calm has started to irritate me. “It’ll make the time go faster,” he adds.
Another day, more dragging hours. The light is on again, and breakfast (more bread, more jerky, more water) came again this morning. This time I pressed myself close to the floor and caught a glimpse of dark trousers and heavy boots. A barking male voice directed me to pass the old tray through the flap door, which I did.
“I don’t know any stories,” I say. Julian is comfortable looking at me now—too comfortable, actually. I can feel his eyes on me as I walk, like a light touch on my shoulder.
“Tell me about your life, then,” Julian says. “It doesn’t have to be a good story.”
I sigh, running through the life Raven helped me construct for Lena Morgan Jones. “I was born in Queens. I attended Unity through fifth grade, then transferred to Our Lady of the Doctrine. Last year I came to Brooklyn and enrolled at Quincy Edwards for my final year.” Julian is still watching me, as though he expects more. I make a quick, impatient gesture with my hand and add, “I was cured in November. I’ll take my evaluation later on this semester, though, with everyone else. I don’t have a match yet.” I run out of things to say. Lena Morgan Jones, like all cureds, is pretty boring.
“Those are facts,” Julian says. “That’s not a story.”
“Fine.” I go and sit on my cot, bringing my legs underneath me, and turn to him. “If you’re such an expert, why don’t you tell me a story?”
I’m expecting him to be flustered, but he just tilts his head back, thinking, blowing air out of his cheeks. The cut on his lip looks even worse today, bruised and swollen. Shades of yellow and green have begun to spread across his jawline. He hasn’t complained, though, either about that or the ragged cut on his cheek.
He says finally, “One time, when I was really little, I saw two people kissing in public.”
“You mean, like, at a marriage ceremony? To seal it?”
He shakes his head. “No. On the street. They were protesters, you know? It was right in front of the DFA. I don’t know if they weren’t cured or the procedure didn’t take or what. I was only, like, six. They were—” At the last second Julian falters.
“What?”
“They were using their tongues.” He looks at me for just a second, then clicks his eyes away. Tongue-kissing is even worse than illegal nowadays. It’s considered dirty, disgusting, a symptom of disease taken root.
“What did you do?” I lean forward in spite of myself. I’m amazed, both by the story and by the fact that Julian is sharing it with me.
Julian cracks a smile. “Want to hear something funny? At first I thought he was eating her.”
I can’t help it: I let out a short bark of laughter. And once I start laughing I can’t stop. All the tension from the past fortyeight hours breaks in my chest, and I laugh so hard I start to tear up. The whole world has been turned inside out and upside down. We are living in a funhouse.
Julian starts to laugh too, then winces, touching his bruised lip. “Ow,” he says, and this makes me laugh even harder, which makes him laugh, which makes him say “Ow” again. Pretty soon we’re both cracking up. Julian has a surprisingly nice laugh, low and musical.
“Okay, your turn,” he finally gasps, as the laughter runs out.
I’m still struggling for breath. “Wait—wait. What happened after that?”
Julian looks at me, still smiling. He has a dimple in his right cheek; a line has appeared between his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“What happened to the couple? The ones who were kissing?”