I’m going to do what Nita said. I’m going to find the Cursed City. Find the way to Forget. But not just for myself. Because I don’t think the Forgetting is a sickness. Not anymore. I think the Forgetting might be a way for the Knowing to be healed. A way to peace that does not lead through death. And I am going to bring that Forgetting back to the Knowing like a gift, so that none of us have to live this way ever again.
And what will the Outsiders do when they can see that the Knowing are not special? That there is no Earth for our Knowing to be kept safe from? That we can Forget just like they do? I think they will rebel. I think they should rebel. There are more Outsiders than Underneath. Many more, and this, I think, is what our Council really fears. That the Forgetting will strip their power. That what I Know will give me the ability to strip their power.
The thought blows hot across my insides, and the rage inside me glows. They should be afraid. Because stripping them of their power is exactly what I’m going to do.
I don’t Know exactly what I’m looking for yet. Germ or toxin. I don’t Know if I’m going to Forget first without meaning to. It doesn’t matter. I have my book, and the truth is written in it. If I Forget, I will read the book, and I’ll Know the truth and understand what to do. My feet climb the slope, and I try to imagine the bliss of Forgetting. A mind without grief, without pain, without Knowing what I’ve done. And all this, I think, is why Nita sent me. Whether she knew it or not.
But first, I have to get there.
When I finally crest the pass I am tangled and ragged, winded and thirsty. I lean on my knees, panting, looking down across a valley that is like a shallow bowl surrounded by peaks, a scoop in the center of a ring of mountains. There’s a forest in the valley, oddly shaped, circular, little glints of white reflecting in the sun along the edges. And then I feel my thudding heart beat harder. Once, twice. And again. Speeding. Stealing the last of my breath.
I don’t think the Council can stop me now. They will not.
Because what I am seeing is a city.
I put my hand on the white stone, hot from weeks of soaking in the sun. I can’t believe I’m touching it. Something slams inside of me. Again. And again. I think it’s my own heart, trying to fight its way out of my chest. Canaan. The lost city.
Whatever Jillian is thinking, she doesn’t tell me. She hasn’t even moved. She just stares at the vine-covered wall towering over us, then turns two Earth-sky eyes on me. “Do you have communication?”
I adjust the lenses on my face, then the earpiece, and shake my head. I’m not sure what to do about that. Actually, I know exactly what to do about that. I should take Jill and turn around right now, climb back up that mountain to where we had communication last. But the stones of Canaan are beneath my hand and I can’t go back now. Not yet.
“Let’s walk the perimeter,” I say. “See if we can find the way in.”
Jill agrees. Or at least she doesn’t argue, though a second look makes me think she might be doing some arguing soon. The wall moves by at a gentle curve, the blocks smooth and well fitted where the roots haven’t broken them. I can feel that this stone has been printed, not quarried, and that’s as it should be. 3-D printing was part of the Canaan Project’s original city planning, to build without detriment to the environment before forgoing tech altogether. I could recite the strategic development files on this verbatim if I wanted to. I don’t think Jill wants me to. But a perimeter wall, that was not to plan. Were they keeping something out? Or the people in?
And why didn’t our scans find this? An enormous wall of human-printed stone is exactly what they were designed to see. Not to mention the topographical and geoanalytical surveys made while we were still on the Centauri III, the ones that came up so thoroughly empty. All the unease from our absent signal comes back now and doubled. If our scans missed this, what else did they miss? An overgrown wall doesn’t mean the city is deserted, and we weren’t trained for initial contact. Not really.
Correction. We were forbidden it.
Maybe Jill is thinking the same thing because she reaches out and grabs my hand. “First sign of life and we go back, Beck,” she whispers.
I nod. Of course that’s what we’ll do. Maybe. And then I see why she said it. There’s an opening in the wall.
We approach carefully, quietly, observing like we’ve been trained. There are more trees now. Huge and all the same kind, thick with heavy buds that look like they’re ready to bloom, roots twining together across the gap in the wall. Branches have pushed straight through massive gates made of a metal I can’t name, slow growth lifting one right out of its hinges. I duck beneath the limbs, buds brushing my hair, Jill still hanging on to my hand, and then we are inside Canaan.
Only it’s not a city of people. It’s a city of trees. White stone showing here and there in the dim of a sun lost beyond a thick canopy, buildings crumbling between massive trunks. But it’s the silence that really makes me think this place is empty, a full kind of quiet that is wind and leaves and nothing human at all. But you can feel that they’ve been here, the humans. Once. And now they’re gone. It’s eerie.
The ground is uneven, easy to trip over, and I realize it’s because we’re on a street, now dirt covered, roots pushing up the stones from below. On one side is an enormous pile of rubble, practically a mountain, a few stunted trees growing in pockets of dirt on the sides and top. But to my right there’s a smaller building. A house. No, a row of houses, now that I’m looking farther, lining both sides of the street. The nearest one looks at me, a two-story front wall stained but still intact, a pitch-dark doorway, and a hole for a window like an empty eye.
I’ve stopped walking. I’m like my mom in the university vaults right now, like Roger with his bugs. I can’t look fast enough. And Sean Rodriguez is going to be so mad I saw all this before he did. And that makes me grin. I shake away the bad feeling I had at the gates, steer Jill toward the open doorway of the house, and stick my head inside, careful not to brush what might be fragile walls.
A second story and maybe even a third has fallen in, though only on one side. On the other there’s an undamaged ceiling, a shelf on one wall print-molded from the stone. I want to know if a lamp sat on that shelf. I want to know what happened to the person who lit the lamp. I let go of Jill and step through the door, careful where I plant my feet, squat down and look at the overgrown rubble without touching it. Some of it is decorative, more ornate than I would have guessed, carved vines, curving moldings. Arches? That wasn’t part of the city planning, either.
Jillian makes a soft cooing sound. She’s on her knees, holding up a shard of pottery in the uneven, dappled light. It’s about the size of her finger, still coated in a thick green glaze.
“Bowl,” she whispers, “handmade, about twenty centimeters, but of a clay I’ve never seen … ”