IT IS A RELIEF TO ESCAPE FROM THE QUINTS’ LAB, BUT the feeling is short-lived because a moment later the ground rumbles beneath our feet and the whole building trembles around us. GG stumbles and I quickly grab for her, pulling her close while we wait for the shaking to stop. Even after it ends, we still stand there, frozen and afraid.
“Was that a fucking earthquake?” I whisper at last.
“Things fall apart,” GG answers, and then adds as an afterthought, “Watch your language.”
I step away from her. “Enough with the cryptic crap. What’s going on? Is this the beginning of the end?”
“The beginning of the end?” GG gives a sharp bark of laughter. “That already happened when you and Piper put the dirt from the reformatory into food. The reformatory needs to feed, but you made the food tougher to eat. And at the same time Elton found a way to make teenagers stop losing their minds. That’s great for our stress levels, at least as long as we keep pretending the pressure isn’t constantly building, demanding an explosion. A delicate balance is what’s kept Gardnerville running these many years. It couldn’t last forever. I always knew that, but I’d never guessed it could all go wrong so quickly. Skylar, believe me when I tell you this: It’s not the beginning of the end. It’s the end of the end.”
“What does that mean?” I demand. “Why can’t you just explain things clearly?”
“I’ll do you one better. I’ll show you where it started.” GG lunges at me, her fingers outstretched and then tangled in my hair and pressing against my skull.
I fall to my knees, clutching my head. The secrets sting me, an endless swarm of bees. Until finally they die down and then disappear, leaving me to pull the stingers from my skin.
My stomach rumbles, warning me I’m about to heave. I hold it in. Cold sweat drips from my forehead as I uncurl my body and force myself to my feet. My eyes meet GG’s.
I thought we’d come to an understanding, reached some sort of détente where we both realized we were on the same side.
I was wrong.
“Lachman Gardner,” I croak. “The founder of Gardnerville was also . . .” I can’t say it. It’s too absurd.
“Your father,” GG finishes for me.
“Great,” I say, and then I lean forward and puke all over her shoes.
After that GG disappears, muttering something about people with weak stomachs. She tells me to stay where I am, so as soon as she’s out of sight I push myself to my feet. Between the earthquake and the regurgitation, I’m a little weak-kneed. Stumbling back into the quints’ lab, I head toward the open windows at the far end of the room. The quints, meanwhile, take one look at me and immediately stand and exit the room in single file.
“You’re not going to say good-bye?” I somehow find the strength to yell after them.
Big surprise, they don’t respond.
They didn’t even pack up their things. Books and beakers and piles of pills cover the tables. Only a few short days ago I would’ve filled my pockets with the purple ones and fled. It’s tempting. To leave the puzzles and questions behind.
I am torn between an inescapable need to know and a wish to be left blissfully ignorant. It’s similar to the way I view horror movies—peeking between my fingers, wanting to watch, but so terribly afraid of what I will see.
Leaning out the window, I feel the cold air of the science labs press against my back as it flees the room and gives way to the sticky wave of humidity. The fresh air clears my head a bit, enough to sort through the mix of information GG filled me with and try to put it into chronological order.
Lachman was a small-time con man who spent his whole life searching for something. He didn’t know what that something was; he just figured he’d know it when he saw it. And when he found Gardnerville—he did.
Of course, it wasn’t Gardnerville then. Back then our town wasn’t a place so much as an idea. It had no name. Or no official one anyway. Some people called it a sanctuary, because they had arrived stumbling up from the ravine, half starved, certain they were going to die alone in the wilderness. Only those who were lost found their way here; no one ever discovered this place while they were searching for it. Those who left did so knowing they would never return.
By the time Lachman arrived, a thriving village existed. It was rustic compared to the outside world, perhaps even a bit backward, but the people who lived here were content with their home. They welcomed Lachman, like they did all the lost who came upon their village, and he in turn smiled at them in the same way a wolf brought into a flock of sheep might.
Lachman was not stupid, and when he wished, he could be very charming. He had a gift for making people love or hate him. He decided to make them love him, to become one of them, because the more he saw of this strange place, the more he began to suspect that this was what he had spent his whole life seeking.
That thing wasn’t fame or money or beautiful women. It was something so much grander than those fleeting pleasures that it shamed him to realize he’d spent so many years thinking so small. That thing was eternal youth and life everlasting.
It took a week for Lachman to realize that there wasn’t one person who looked older than forty, and yet every single one of them had lived in the village for at least that many years. Quite a few may have been there for hundreds of years. They didn’t exactly know; they’d stopped counting long ago. After another week, Lachman understood that if he continued to live there, he could live forever too. It was that simple. One more week passed, and by then Lachman had already decided: it wasn’t enough.
He wanted more than this quiet life full of simple pleasures. But he couldn’t leave and go back to his old life, where he would grow older and older, always knowing what he’d left behind. Unwilling to walk away, Lachman put to use all he knew of schemes and scams and confidence games. Slowly, yet steadily, he spread discontent through the village as thick as the butter upon his bread.
He did this with no more than a word or a look directed at what he’d decided should be the target of the village’s ire—the vermin. The vermin, or as they’d been called rather more simply and with considerably less disgust prior to Lachman’s arrival, the rats.
Before Lachman began referring to them as vermin, the villagers had seen the rats as generous landlords. Everyone knew the rats had been there first, that in many ways this place belonged to the rats and they were incredibly generous to share it for nothing more than the promise of a bit of food left out for them at night.
After Lachman changed them from rats to vermin, the people began to see things differently. Now the rats were a nuisance. And worse: a pestilence bringing sickness and disease. This was obvious after one of the odious vermin bit Lachman, and the poor man was laid up sick for days, so weak and feverish he couldn’t get out of bed.
When Lachman finally felt strong again, he announced—with the greatest reluctance—that he would have to leave. He simply could not live in such a place where vermin were given more respect than people. The people of the village, who had seen so many other outsiders leave and usually only shook their heads at such foolishness, this time shook their heads for another reason. They would not, they could not, let Lachman leave. If they had taken more time to think things over, they might have asked themselves why they cared so much about Lachman. And they might have concluded that while he had brought excitement and color to their formerly dull lives, he had also taken away the simple joys they’d once cherished. But they did not, could not, take that time, because Lachman did everything but pack his bags and demand, “It’s them or me.”
It was decided—by a unanimous show of hands—that the rats would be the ones to leave.
But getting rid of them proved more difficult than Lachman had anticipated. He poisoned them and watched them die, but the next day they were back again. He caged them, then drowned them, but the next day they were back again. Other men might’ve been discouraged, but Lachman simply saw it as an opportunity.
The simple shacks in the village were not to his taste, and he’d been working out how to introduce the idea of building something a little grander. There was a spot set up in the mountains where the villagers went when they were seeking an extra bit of peace. It overlooked the entire valley. A man who lived in a house built upon that spot would be the king of everything spread below him.
So it was that the rats were poisoned once more, but this time Lachman had their bodies crushed, mixed with clay, and made into bricks. The bricks were brought up the mountain and a wall went up. The next day more rats arrived, more rats become bricks, and another wall went up. It went this way for days and weeks, until finally no more rats were left and a grand brick building jutted from the mountainside, foreign and dreadful.
The day Lachman moved in, it began to rain. The water that fell tasted salty. Like tears. Not a single person said it, but they all thought it.
This was the first misgiving.
After all the business of killing and building, there was at last a lull, and regret quickly settled in. Second thoughts were followed by third thoughts, but it was already too late. By the time the rain stopped, the Salt Spring had formed at the base of the mountain, and Lachman had moved back down to the valley. He complained that the villagers had built his new house poorly. They would try again, he said, but this time they would build something a little closer to the new town center; it wouldn’t do for the founder of Gardnerville to live so far away.
Life continued in the place now known as Gardnerville. At first nothing really seemed different. New houses and other buildings were built; that was the most obvious change. Other things, like aging, weren’t noticed until someone looked down and didn’t recognize their own wrinkled hands. And it was only once people realized their youth was slipping away that they also noticed there were no more newcomers. Not a single person had stumbled upon their town since Lachman had arrived. It seemed that they would die, and Gardnerville with them, but Lachman wouldn’t allow that.
Yes, he now realized there had been some flaws in his vermin-removal plan. And yes, his tinkering may have resulted in killing the very thing he’d cherished about this place. But he was not ready to admit defeat, because while the residents of Gardnerville no longer looked youthful, they were still healthy. Most importantly—they were still alive. They were no longer living forever, but most people reached at least a century before they gave in to the need for an eternal rest. Lachman decided this was enough for him, and he thought it would be more than enough to make other people want to live here too.
Lachman set the young and able-bodied to work once more, this time digging into and through the mountain, until they came out on the other side.
It took time, years and then decades, and during that interval Lachman began to see signs of his own mortality creeping up on him. Suddenly a century did not seem like enough time to live; he wanted the immortality this place had first promised. His gaze settled on the empty brick edifice built into the mountainside. For so long he’d avoided looking at it. What he saw there scared him. That building made out of the dead rats had somehow come to life. It could not speak or move, but it radiated its intentions in a way that was unmistakable. It was hungry. Angry and betrayed too. It did not respond to his charm, except as something it could feed on. Lachman recognized that insatiable hunger; it was not so different from the thing that drove him. Although he’d once run from the building, now he saw an opportunity to give it something and get something from it in return.
Lachman married a sweet young girl, and a year later she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. On their second birthday, Lachman pulled them from their beds and carried them up the mountain. The children’s mother was frantic; she didn’t know where her family had gone. A week later, Lachman and the little girl came back down the mountain and they were not the same after that.
The little girl seemed stuck at two for years afterward, but eventually, slowly, at half the speed of other children her age, she grew older. No one knew what the girl had seen in that house on the mountainside, but it must’ve been terrible. It was no surprise that she grew up with the ability to make other people see things too.
As for Lachman, his charm had changed. It was no longer soft and oozing, but a weapon similar to Cupid’s arrows—he had access to all hearts and he pierced every single one. People now loved him without knowing why. They loved him without reason and without the will to do otherwise. Perhaps if they did not love him they might’ve wondered how it was he no longer seemed to age. Or they might have asked what exactly had happened to his son. Lachman would only say the boy was gone.
His wife died soon thereafter, some said of grief, although Lachman saw it as a betrayal, that her love for him wasn’t enough to sustain her. By the time he married again, the tunnel through the mountain was complete and the trains were running into town, and his daughter from his first marriage now looked older than him and had begun to refer to herself as his grandmother.
Fourth years were also an accepted part of life. The first one occurred a few years after Lachman’s son was lost. It wasn’t called a fourth year then, of course. That came later, after a pattern emerged. Then it was just called madness when a young boy, upset about something so unimportant that years later even he couldn’t remember what it had been, started screaming. Those closest to him lost their lives. Others, at a farther distance, became completely deaf.
The town was shocked. Lachman was relieved. The building needed to be fed again, and now he had a volunteer. Lachman decreed that the building set into the mountainside would become a reformatory for young troubled souls like the poor screaming boy. They would be sent there until it was deemed safe for them to become part of society again.
That was how Gardnerville became the place we know today.
Lachman Gardner—my father—created it.
I am suddenly certain of something else: if Piper succeeds in destroying the reformatory, she will be taking all of Gardnerville down too.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
I jump as Elton’s voice carries across the room.
Slowly, I turn to face him. “I came to see the quints.”
“I didn’t know you were friends.”
Elton stands in the doorway with Foote at his back. I stare at Foote for a moment, looking for some sign that he is on my side and not getting ready to double-cross me. His face is flat and he doesn’t meet my eyes. I focus on Elton again. “We’re not friends. We’re family.”
He gives me his bright, blank politician smile. “Sky, I’m worried about you. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if there is anything you need, you can come right to me for it.”
“Yeah, as long as that thing is purple and round and makes the whole world go gray.” I cross the room, ready to kick his silver legs out from under him if that’s what it takes to get away. He is stronger and steadier than I’ve given him credit for, though. His hands grip my shoulders and he propels me backward step by step, until my spine is pressed against the lab table with the pile of purple pills.
“Have a pill. Take a few extra for later too. It may not seem like it right now, but it’s for your own good. We’ve talked about that before. Maybe you’ve forgotten.”
“I remember more than you think.” I lean forward, close enough to kiss Elton, and then I whisper, “I remember the night Piper didn’t come home. She said you slept under the stars together beside the depot. You proposed to her there. Even though you didn’t have a ring and she was too young. You told her you loved her. Couldn’t live without her. The next morning, you were woken up by the train tearing through town.”
Elton’s face goes red and his hands clench my shoulders harder. “That’s a story. It didn’t happen.”
I smile then. “Really? ’Cause Piper never told me that. You did. Just now.”
He releases me and takes two steps back. “It didn’t happen,” he says again, but less certain and with something else under his words. He reaches down to rub his knee and to avoid my eyes and to remind himself to be strong like steel. But that touch only increases the something else, because the something else is longing. Not longing for his lost limbs. Longing for the softer man who’d believed in love. And Piper.
“Take the pills and get out.” His voice is hard.
“Which pills?” I ask. Spinning away, I move toward another table, where pills as red as cherries are stacked in neat rows. “Scarlet runners?” Grabbing a handful, I fling them at Elton and move to the next table. “Or maybe some of these pretty-in-pink foxgloves. I’ve heard they give heart to those who lack courage.” I chuck another handful at Elton and then walk to the last table, where only a few yellow pills lie scattered across an open notebook. I pick one up and pretend to be stumped. “This one must be new, but it kind of looks like a . . . a sunflower.”
I walk toward Elton with slow, deliberate steps. “I wonder what would happen if I took this pill. Or better yet . . . what if the whole town took this pill? Would we wake up singing a happy good-morning song, spend our whole day skipping everywhere we went, and fall asleep with a smile on our lips?”
Elton’s eyes have narrowed to two angry slits, and his mouth is a hard, flat line. “You think because you pulled something out of my head that you know the whole story. You don’t, though. You don’t know the half of it.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me about it?”
Leaning down, Elton picks one of the purple pills off the floor. He looks at it for a moment, removes an invisible bit of dirt, and then stands and holds it out to me. “Take the pill and I’ll tell you anything you want.”
You’d think at this point, being so close to the truth, I wouldn’t even be tempted. Oh, how I wish that were true.
Elton knows it too. He can see the struggle on my face. “Do the smart thing, Skylar.”
My hand itches to smack the pill out of his hand, but I swallow the impulse. “You take it.”
Elton blinks at me and then brings the pill to his lips. It’s an amazing bluff, a fake-out. . . . But then I see it on his tongue just before he closes his mouth.
“Spit it out! Are you crazy?”
With a gurgling cough, Elton spits the pill back out onto the floor.
“Why’d you do that?” I demand.
“You told me to,” he says, still staring at the saliva-covered pill oozing its purple coating all over the floor.
I reach forward to shake him, to make him meet my eyes, but I don’t want to touch him again. He was right about me not knowing the whole story. Elton is a master manipulator. The whole pretending-to-take-the-pill stunt is him playing with me, trying to confuse me, making me think of Piper, reminding me how alike we are. He still doesn’t get that I see that as a positive thing. Maybe it’s time to drive the point home.
“You do what I tell you to now? Well, good.” I point to the window. “Exit that way and try to grow some wings before you hit the ground.”
Elton looks up from the pill at last. He blinks at me the same way he did before taking the pill and then turns toward the window. Oh, he’s good. I’ll give him that. He’s playing chicken with me. Waiting for me to admit I’ve been bluffing and fold. I cross my arms over my chest as he uses a chair to clamber up toward the windowsill. One curved leg and then another steps up, and then he is crouched, framed inside the window. This is the part where I’m supposed to break. I can see the tension in his back and the trembling in his legs as he waits for me to—
Elton jumps. His silver legs, like pistons, push him up and out into the air, where he hangs for a moment—frozen—before falling. Foote pushes past me and then dives through the window after Elton. He doesn’t hang in the air; he doesn’t try to fly. He aims downward like he is racing to see who can reach the ground first.
Reflexively I put my hands over my ears, not wanting to hear the crash, the screams, the whatever comes next. For a full minute I hold that pose. Eyes closed. Ears covered. Trembling from head to toe. Then slowly I let my hands fall and open my eyes. I am in the science lab. There are pills everywhere. I wonder if I took one without knowing it. Maybe I imagined everything that just happened. That maybe happened. That couldn’t have happened.
I slide my feet across the floor as if I am on ice and it might shatter beneath me. When I reach the window, I take a deep breath before leaning over the sill and peering down. Foote and Elton both lie there.
I stumble backward, crashing into the quints.
“Elton. Foote.” The words fall from my mouth as a shaking finger points toward the window.
The quints nod. “We know,” they say, watching me with their milky-white eyes.
“Well, you’re the geniuses here. Do something. Fix them.”
Their brows furrow, and something that looks like pity slides across their faces. “We don’t fix things that are broken. We just try and find ways to make it hurt less.”
“Of course.” I push through them, and they quickly scatter. Then I am taking the stairs two at a time and my sandals are skidding on the slick floors as I run down the empty hallways. I push the front doors open with a bang and the humid air gives me its usual big wet kiss hello, but I barely notice because Elton is sitting up, rubbing his head like it aches, but otherwise he looks fine. His hair isn’t even messed up. There isn’t a single ding on his metal legs.
I look past him, my chest expanding with a dangerous kind of hope—that is quickly deflated.
Foote lies still and twisted.
I turn away so fast it makes me dizzy. The too-blue sky swirls above me. Then a hand grips my arm.
“Come with me,” Elton says.
I go without argument. He’ll probably funnel a pile of forget-me-nots down my throat.
Just ten minutes ago that seemed like something terrible, but at the moment I can’t quite remember why.