Oh. It makes more sense now.
But I’m caught off-guard by the way my heart suddenly lightens with each step toward Will. How conscious I am of the wind as it ruffles my skirt against the backs of my knees, and how I’m not sure what to do with my hands in the moment he looks up and smiles just wide enough for me to glimpse that single crooked tooth.
“Aila’s coming with me,” Will tells his mother through her open car window. “We’ll be back for dinner.”
We put our schoolbags in the back seat, and Miles climbs into the front. He looks back and forth between Will and me with an expression that suggests he’s about to say something embarrassing.
“Bye, Miles!” I say, and hurriedly shut the door on him. He presses his mouth and cheeks against the window glass as the car pulls away, which elicits a laugh from Will.
“Don’t encourage him,” I mutter. “So where are we going?”
“Thought you’d want to see the Marketplace.”
“Where they sell the Variants?”
He nods, and I hurry to match his long strides through the shadows cast by the orchard’s tree branches, tripping through the stripes of shade and sun. I’m conscious that we are alone together again, and for some reason it’s making me feel jittery and nervous.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” he says.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the words I saw in the book about Sterling. The Curse. Now, in the sunlight, with William’s hand only inches from my own, it doesn’t seem quite as unnerving as it had in Dr. Cliffton’s library.
“Why do you think the Disappearances happened here?” I ask.
A muscle flickers in Will’s jaw. “You know,” he says, squinting up at the sky, “it’s not just Sterling.”
My mouth falls open. “What do you mean?”
I notice, with the slightest twinge of dread, that he has not actually answered my question.
“Two other neighboring towns,” he says. “Corrander and Sheffield. We call ourselves the Sisters. Ever heard of them?”
I shake my head. “I hadn’t heard anything about any of this. How is that possible? Why does it have to be such a secret?”
“Well, first off, think about what would happen if everyone else in the world knew they could profit from selling us the simplest pleasures in life.”
“But I would think that if more people knew about it, you would have a better chance of finding—”
“Watch that.” He points to a root jutting up from the ground. When I’ve cleared it, he says, “I guess at first, word did get around about the missing scents. There were some curiosity visits. My grandmother said that some of the residents felt as though they were being observed like animals. Most people who came were nice and hoped to help. But there were the others, too. The ones who would sell us meat going bad because they knew we couldn’t smell it. Or strew rotting garbage in places we couldn’t see it. Fitzpatrick’s General Store lost a fortune of inventory one year; by the time he found the pile someone hid away, the maggots and vermin had set in.”
I blanch. “I don’t know why some people seize on any opportunity to be cruel.”
He shakes it off. “Anyway, as the Disappearances kept happening, it didn’t take long to see that they make us vulnerable. So the towns voted to band together, form the Council, and keep it all a secret. And we take that seriously, to protect each other.”
“And people won’t leave?” I ask. “Or . . .” I hesitate. “Can’t?”
“My reflection won’t come back just because I leave Sterling. Not like yours will.” His jaw twitches again. “You’re a visitor. The Disappearances will only affect you for as long as you’re here. But I was born into it. It’s in my blood. The only relief now is temporary, and it’s with the Variants.”
He curves into a thick grove of white-blossomed trees. The breeze bows the branches, loosening petals until they fall around us like snow.
It suddenly makes sense why the war feels so distant here. Sterling is like a jeweled piece of fruit locked in a glass case.
I swallow. But that piece of fruit is rotting.
Will shifts uncomfortably. His voice turns slightly bitter. “So in Sterling we stay.” He offers the petals to me, as soft as down. “Here. Save these for later.”
He begins walking again. The trees are crowding together until there are more shadows than sun. I’m looking at the petals he gave me, at the ridges of white veins running through them, when he suddenly grabs me and pulls me behind a tree. My breath hitches in surprise, and he raises his fingers to his lips and shakes his head.
I hear the voices now. Distant and lowered.
I am close enough to Will to feel him breathe.
“That’s more than it was last time, Larkin,” someone protests.
“That’s economics for you. Demand’s gone up. Do you want it or not?”
Will’s body tightens, and I try not to think about how I’ve never been this close to a boy who wasn’t Miles or Father.
There’s a hedging pause. “Fine.”
“You’re sure that’s all you want? I can’t guarantee it won’t be even more next time.”
“I can’t afford any more at those prices,” the buyer growls. I hear the jangle of coins and the rustle of paper, then footsteps retreating deeper into the forest, in opposite directions.
Even once they’re gone, Will doesn’t fully relax. But he listens carefully and then takes a step away from me. “We can go now,” he says. “Those were black market dealings. Would have been . . . unfortunate for us to walk in on them.”
I think of the warning in my Variant handbook. Of illegal and dangerous Variants.
I hurry to keep up with him again. “You can feel the tension already,” Will says, loosening the knot of his tie. “Growing. Everyone will keep getting more skittish until we find out what disappears next.” He turns to look at me. His eyes are the exact color of the sky. “Unfortunately, you came just in time to see the whole town at its worst.”
“Some of this still doesn’t seem quite real,” I confess.
“And for me it’s the opposite,” he says. “It’s sort of fascinating, to see Sterling through the eyes of someone from the outside.” I notice that he’s leading us in a way that threads between the trees instead of walking in a straight line, as if to avoid cutting a path someone could follow.
“Only a few people have dared to try leaving the Sisters,” he says. “Eliza Patton’s older sister is at an opera company in New York. She just fakes the missing senses as best she can. But with each new Disappearance, it’s becoming harder to do that.”
Ahead of us is a tall stone wall covered with moss and ivy. The wall seems higher as we near until it rises above my head, and I suddenly hope that Will doesn’t expect me to climb it. I could do it. But I would prefer not to in my school skirt.