“One of the protesters got too close to the stage; too close to my dad. He was screaming something—I couldn’t hear what. It was loud, and he was wearing a ski mask. The guard brought him down with a nightstick. Weirdly, I remember I could hear that; the crack of the wood against his knee, the thud as he collapsed. That’s when my dad saw it, must have seen it: the birthmark on the back of his left hand, shaped like a big half-moon. My brother’s birthmark. He jumped off the stage into the audience, tore off the mask, and … it was him. My brother was lying there, in agony, his knee shattered in a thousand places. But I’ll never forget the look he gave my father. Totally calm, and resigned, too, like … like he knew what was going to happen.
“We finally made it out—had a police escort all the way home. My brother was stretched out in the back of the van, moaning. I wanted to ask him whether he was okay, but I knew my dad would kill me. He drove the whole way home without saying a word, without taking his eyes off the road. I don’t know what my mom was feeling. Maybe not much. But I think she was worried. The Book of Shhh says that our obligations to our children are sacred, right? ‘And the good mother will finish discharging her duties in heaven…’” Julian quotes softly. “She wanted him to see a doctor, but my dad wouldn’t hear of it. My brother’s knee looked bad—swollen to the size of a basketball, practically. He was sweating like crazy, in so much pain. I wanted to help. I wanted to—” A tremor passes through Julian’s body. “When we got home, my dad threw my brother into the basement and locked it. He was going to leave him there for a day, in the dark. So my brother would learn his lesson.”
I picture Thomas Fineman: the clean-pressed clothing and gold cuff links, which must give him such satisfaction; the polished watch and the neatly trimmed hair. Pure, clean, spotless, like a man who can always count on a good night’s sleep. I hate you, I think, for Julian’s sake. Julian has never gotten to know those words, to feel the relief in them.
“We could hear my brother crying through the door. We could hear him from the dining room when we ate dinner. My dad made us sit through a whole meal. I’ll never forgive him for that.” The last part is spoken in a whisper. I find his hand and lace my fingers in his and squeeze. He gives me a small pulse back.
For a while we lie there in silence. Then, from above, there’s a soft rushing sound: then the sound separates, becomes thousands of raindrops hitting the pavement. Water drums down through the grates, pinging off the metal rails of the old tracks.
“And then the crying stopped,” Julian says simply, and I think of that day in the Wilds with Raven, taking turns mopping Blue’s head while the sun broke in a wave over the trees, long after we had felt her grow cold under our hands.
Julian clears his throat. “They said afterward it was a freak accident; a blood clot from his injury that migrated into his brain. One-in-a-million chance. My dad couldn’t have known. But still, I—”
He breaks off. “After that, you know, I was always so careful. I would do everything right. I would be the perfect son, a model for the DFA. Even once I found out the cure would probably kill me. It was more than fear,” Julian says, a sudden rush of words. “I thought if I followed the rules, things would turn out all right. That’s the thing about the cure, isn’t it? It isn’t just about deliria at all. It’s about order. A path for everyone. You just have to follow it and everything will be okay. That’s what the DFA is about. That’s what I believed in—what I’ve had to believe in. Because otherwise, it’s just … chaos.”
“Do you miss him?” I ask.
Julian doesn’t answer right away, and I know, somehow, that nobody has ever asked him this before. “I think so,” he says finally, in a low voice. “I did for a long time. My mom—my mom told me it wouldn’t be so bad after the cure. I wouldn’t think about him that way anymore, she said.”
“That’s even worse,” I say quietly. “That’s when they’re really gone.”
I count three long seconds of silence, and in each one of them, Julian’s heart drums against my back. I’m not cold anymore. If anything, I’m too hot. Our bodies are so close—skin sticking to skin, fingers entangled. His breath is on my neck.
“I don’t know what’s going on anymore,” Julian whispers. “I don’t understand anything. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.”
“You’re not supposed to know,” I say, and it’s true: The tunnels may be long, and twisted, and dark; but you are supposed to go through them.
More silence. Finally Julian says, “I’m scared.”
He barely whispers it; but I can feel his lips moving against my neck, as though the words are being spelled there.
“I know,” I say. “Me too.”
I can’t stay awake any longer. I’m carried back and forth through time and memory, between this rain and rains before it, as though climbing up and down a spiral staircase. Julian has his arm around me, and then Alex does; then Raven is holding my head in her lap, and then my mother is singing to me.
“I’m less scared with you,” Julian says. Or maybe it is Alex who speaks, or maybe I’ve only dreamed the words. I open my mouth to respond but find I can’t speak. I’m drinking water, and then I’m floating, and then there is nothing but sleep, liquid and deep.
then