30
“DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE TREE IS?” Abra asked Mallory.
“Don’t you?” he asked.
She shook her head.
The two sat there, and if you had walked down the street directly behind them, coming out of the city, you would have thought that perhaps you were looking at a father and a daughter fishing together. Or maybe they were throwing stones into the water. Or maybe they were waiting for a boat to come in. Or maybe they were saying good-bye.
“You’re very strange,” Abra said, glancing at the man out of the corner of her eye to see how he would take such a charge.
He smiled without looking at her. Staring out over the sea, he said in a quiet voice, “You haven’t been into the city yet, have you?”
“No. I’m looking for the Tree.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Why wouldn’t you go into the city?”
“It’s a tree,” she said, discouragement setting in. “Wouldn’t it be where other trees are?”
He frowned, appearing deep in thought. “Perhaps,” he said. “But you don’t know enough about the city. This place is young. Very young. The buildings are still standing for the most part, the streets are still level. There are other cities like this, you know, other in-between places, and they are in ruins. You can see straight through them from one end to the other, that’s how far they have fallen.”
“There are other cities like this?” she asked.
He nodded. “Six others. Koli Naal and those like her opened all the gates. But this is the only one with the Tree. So far.”
“Koli Naal,” Abra said, and the name came easily now, as the names of enemies do after you think them over and over again in your head, wearing them down with your bitterness.
“This city, it creates what is needed. Isn’t that interesting? When the first live person came through the grave of Marie Laveau, there was only the one house along the road.”
“We saw that house!”
“Yes. That was the first house. But as more people came through, this place grew. Now it’s a city. Then I was called.”
“Called?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. Me and my boat, I guess we’re needed.”
“For what?”
He beckoned out over the water. “For crossing.”
Abra leaned forward and looked down at his tiny boat bobbing harshly in the waves. “You’re going to cross all that water in that little thing?” Her voice came out part laughter at the futility, part sadness at his certain destruction. The boat was small, like a rowboat, and had two seats.
“Or sink. One or the other.”
“That’s what you’re needed for?”
He took a deep breath, and she could tell he was getting tired of explaining.
“Every single thing in this city is here because someone needs it, either someone who is here or someone who is coming here. There are things in this city that you need that you don’t even know you need, things that have been waiting here for you to come and use them. That’s how this Passageway works. It was here originally because the spirits of the dead needed a way to get across the water. It provided a way for them. When living people wandered in, it kept doing that, it kept providing. Now I’m here. I don’t know what I’m here for, but I’m here for something, so I’ll wait right here until I figure out why I’m here.”
“You really believe that?” Abra asked. “You really believe this city is like that?”
“Let me tell you a little secret, Abra.” When he said her name, it sent a thrill through her. “Everything in your world is like that too. Every single thing in the world is there for someone, for their perfect use.”
They sat there for a moment, listening to the water and the boat thudding against the wall. Abra kept staring off at the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything.
“What do I do?” she asked. “Where do I go?”
Mallory put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Abra didn’t know if it was because she had been wandering by herself for so long or if there was actually some kind of supernatural power in his hands, but the tips of his fingers sent a jolt through her, pure energy. She became very aware of her own breathing, and her heartbeat seemed to settle into the same rhythm as the waves against the seawall.
When Mallory spoke again it was in a kind voice.
“If you don’t know where to go or what to do, here is what I would recommend: go as far as you’re able and do what you can. The rest will happen. I promise. The rest will always happen.”
It was getting darker, and Abra would have loved to stay. She enjoyed Mallory’s company. She would have liked to watch the Wailers shoot out over the water, but she felt a sudden urgency to find the Tree. Talking with Mallory set it in her bones the way cold weather puts an ache in the joints. Something was happening.
“Thank you, Mallory,” she said.
He nodded and lay on his back, his legs still dangling over the edge. “Go as far as you are able,” he said, and she started walking away. When she got a little farther, she heard him shout, still lying on his back, and his voice went straight up like a beacon.
“And do what you can!”
He laughed after that, and it was a joyous sound, one that Abra would carry with her until the end.
Abra walked straight into the city, down a long, wide boulevard lined with expensive-looking shops. Except, like the rest of the buildings in the city, they were empty. The darkness had nearly settled completely, and she waited to hear the approach of the Wailers, shattering the silence as they did every night. Instead, she heard a different sound.
Perhaps she had lost track of her surroundings. Perhaps she had become lost as she thought back over her conversation with Mallory. Perhaps she was tired. Perhaps her proximity to the water kept her from hearing what she had heard before from a long way off. Maybe it was all of these things, or something else entirely, but whatever the case, she didn’t hear the sound of the engine and the tires crunching over broken glass until it was too late. The headlights swung around the corner and caught her full in the face. She raised her hand to shield her eyes, trying to look behind the beams.
The first vehicle was followed by two more, and she realized they were the armored buses she had seen early that morning.
“Who are you?” a voice said from the vehicle in the front, but it wasn’t a normal voice—it was a voice amplified by something, and it wavered and crackled artificially in the shadows.
Abra didn’t say anything. She glanced to her right and saw a shop with large display windows. The windows were cracked but not shattered, and the door hung on its hinges. Inside the building was only darkness. Her hand, the one that wasn’t shielding her eyes, moved to the side of her pants and felt the hilt of the sword where it stuck out over her shirt.
“Answer the question. Who are you?”
Even in the middle of that situation, Abra smiled to herself as she remembered Mallory’s words.
I guess I’m waiting to find out who I am, or what I’m for.
“I don’t know,” Abra replied quietly.
“Can’t hear you. Speak up.”
“I don’t know!” Abra shouted, smiling.
The man started to say something else, but then he stopped, his voice catching the way a hand leaps backward after hitting an unseen splinter on a smooth surface. Abra heard the Wailers begin their approach from far away.
“You need to get into this vehicle right now,” the man said, genuine fear in his voice.
Abra waited.
The first vehicle turned off, followed by complete silence when the other two vehicles also shut off their engines. Abra wasn’t sure what they were doing, but she was getting ready to run.
“They’re coming,” the voice said. “You need to hurry. Get in here.”
Abra still didn’t move from her spot. The three vehicles shut off their lights. The sound of the Wailers grew louder, and a glow began to light up the street a few blocks away. She wasn’t scared of the Wailers, but it seemed that the men in the vehicles were. Abra turned and ran through the dark doorway as the Wailers flew past, their sound like a siren in the night.
Abra felt her way through the darkness. She banged her shin on a chair and collided with a counter, then found her way around it and into a back room, almost completely dark except for occasional flashes of light as a bright white Wailer flew past outside. She pushed her way through a swinging door, opened another door, and found herself in some kind of a service hallway that must have linked up all the shops in that building with a stairwell. She wondered if it led to a parking garage or something with a roof where she could make her way back outside. She felt her way through the darkness, tripped against some stairs, and started going up.
Up, up, up she went. It took her nearly five minutes in the darkness, but she made it to the top. She couldn’t find her way to the roof, so she opened a door into what might have been an apartment and walked over to a window. She peered down. The three vehicles were still there, not moving, lights off, and the Wailers swept around them and toward the water ten or fifteen blocks away.
Abra locked the door she had come through and gathered things she could feel in the darkness: a coffee table, some overstuffed couch cushions, a thin rug. She created a small den for herself, a safe place in that foreign world, and she curled up inside of it. The air was cooler than she remembered it being. She hugged herself, curling her legs up so that she was almost in a ball. She felt safe, hidden as she was. She felt like it was a place no one would find her. She took a deep breath, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and fell fast asleep.
The tall building. The tall building. She woke up with the tall building on her mind. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? If she could get there, if she could get to the top, she should be able to see the Tree. The Tree of Life that had grown in her valley had been huge, and that was in the first few hours. Imagine how big a Tree of Life would be if it had been growing for months or years!
She peeked through the window. The dim pink light of morning rested on everything like dew, and she had grown used to the silence. It was like a blanket was on the city, muffling all the sound. The trucks were gone. The road was clear. She stood up and stretched and turned on one of the faucets. Water ran out, clear and cold, and she stared at it for a little while. Was this what Mallory had been talking about? Was this the provision the city offered?
She leaned in over the sink and drank and drank and drank, and the water went down deep, filling not only her physical thirst but something deeper, something more real. Abra wiped her mouth on her shirt, then walked back out into the hallway and down the stairs and through the front door. The morning light filled her with an intense energy and hope. She wondered if Mallory was still sitting on the wall, staring out over the water.
But she didn’t have much time to wonder. Before she took ten steps down the sidewalk, men rushed at her from every direction. They pushed her down to the sidewalk and tied her hands. She felt the grit of cement on her cheek. Her breath swept away from her, and she gasped to bring it back.
“Ahhh!” one of them shouted. “Something burned me.”
They were more careful after that. In a few moments she was blindfolded, and someone led her, pushed her, dragged her around the corner. She heard three large vehicles roar to life. She was lifted into one and rough hands placed her on a hard seat. She wondered why they didn’t take her sword. Couldn’t they feel it where it stuck out from her pants? Didn’t they see the edge of the handle above her waistband?
“Let’s go,” a voice said, and it was the same voice from the night before.
They drove for about five minutes, and the buses heaved around corners like elephants and bounced over bumps in the road like large ships over waves.
“Everything okay in the back?” the voice asked.
“Safe and secure,” a different voice said through a CB or a radio.
“10-4.”
The bus stopped and Abra heard the door open. A man walked out and came right back in.
“Looks good,” he said.
“Roadblock ahead,” the driver said.
“Turn right on 9th Avenue,” the voice replied.
“Copy.”
“Frenzy, 12:00.”
The bus slammed to a stop. Abra expected the vehicles behind them to crash into them, but nothing happened.
“They’ve seen us. They’re coming this way,” the driver said.
Abra ducked her head down.
“Hold,” the voice said again.
“Copy,” the radio replied.
Abra heard the distant sound of shouting, the far-off shattering of glass. Soon things began hitting the vehicle, heavy things, like bricks and bottles and chunks of wood.
“Straight ahead, slow and steady,” the voice said.
“Copy.”
The bus started forward again, and now Abra could hear hands pounding on the sides and more things smashing.
“Roadblock ahead,” the driver said.
“Right again. Take Severe Drive.”
The bus turned, and Abra swayed with it.
“Full speed ahead,” the voice said. “Let’s get out of here.”
They drove and they drove fast, and Abra braced herself for a collision that never came.
“Open the gate! Open the gate!” the voice shouted into the radio.
They slowed, made a few short turns, and the bus stopped.