A Time to Speak Read online

  No. I released enough sorrow on the floor of that containment center. Reid knew he would die. He knew. He was ready.

  A tear splashes on the journal.

  “He knew,” I whisper.

  But even though he knew . . . even though I’ll see him in Heaven . . . even though he was ready, I still miss him. I guess tears are okay.

  I set the journal on a new carved bed stand—probably a gift from Father to Tawny. Maybe she’ll want Reid’s journal. She is his wife—well, widow—after all.

  My hand reenters the bag, but the floppy canvas keeps moving and tilting off balance. I finally pick up the pack by the bottom and pour the contents onto the floor. Nasty socks, underwear, and bunched clothing cushion the clunk of my NAB and sentra.

  Father’s dagger isn’t here. Neither is the Vitality suit from Wilbur Sherrod. Of course the Enforcers would take the suit. It’s the most valuable item I brought back from the West. That strangely enhanced article of clothing kept me alive against the assassin’s toxin for nine days.

  I dig through the socks until my fingers wrap around a thin length of wood. I lift Jude’s whistle to my lips. It has six holes and sap stoppers the end of it. I blow softly. Tweet. My small smile quivers. “Oh Jude . . .”

  See you soon, he said to me before he died. They would have been his last words if I hadn’t demanded to know why he gave the enemy his invention of Clock-matching—an invention he’d protected with his life.

  An invention he died for.

  His last words then became, ask Solomon.

  Talk about a loaded question.

  But I can’t talk to Hawke, not yet. Not while his Testimony Log is in. What I can do is launch a rescue mission to save Elm. For that, I’ll need Willow on board.

  Voices drift from the kitchen. I return to the room of discomfort only to enter an argument. “He said nothing meaningful about Reid at that funeral.” Tawny’s voice is more girlish than mine, but not as prissy as her appearance. “Some people here call themselves believers? Please.”

  “No one is calling themselves a believer, Tawny.” Mother sits beside her. Willow is not in the kitchen.

  Tawny folded her arms with a huff. “Don’t you claim to be one?”

  Mother says nothing.

  “So where’s Willow?” This phony wife thinks, now that she’s a Blackwater, that she can challenge my mother? Think again, little blondie.

  “Outhouse.”

  “Where will we be sleeping?”

  “Well, you’re sleeping in Tawny’s room, with her.” Mother touches her forehead, as if pressing back a headache. “Willow will be with your father and me.”

  I choke on indignation. “Tawny’s room?”

  Tawny stands and raises an eyebrow. “Trust me, the bed’s big enough for two.” She turns with a swirl of her white dress and walks into her—my—room.

  I can’t hold on to my affront. I just want to cry. Sinking into a chair across from Mother, we both sit there for a moment. It’s so good to see her face again, to see those little frown wrinkles and the weathered skin.

  She stares out the lattice window over the sink. Is she thinking of when I smashed the single pane that used to be there?

  “Mother?” I reach across the table.

  She looks back at me, but not into my eyes. She’s staring a little to my left. “Yes?”

  “Are . . . are you happy I’m . . . back?”

  “Of course.” Her answer comes too quick, too sharp. She doesn’t take my hand.

  I curl my fingers into a loose fist, resting my thumb on the band of my silver cross ring. “Do you . . . want to talk about anything that happened in the West?” I need to share it with someone. I need to know that it mattered . . . that my biography—and the tsunami-like aftermath—was worth it.

  “Parvin, I didn’t really know what was going on with you other than what Enforcer Hawke came and told us. I was busy living my life here, with your father and Reid . . . and Tawny.”

  “Oh.” She doesn’t know my story? “Didn’t you read my X-book biography?”

  She sighs and her voice turns harsh. “X-books don’t exist in Unity Village or any Low City, Parvin. Have you forgotten already?”

  “Hawke had one. I thought he told you things.”

  “Not much.”

  Oh yeah, his Testimony Log. “Well . . . do you want to know my story?”

  We don’t talk often, but this could be a chance to reconnect—to open up with each other and be authentic. So much happened in the past six months, like I lived a full life in a condensed amount of time.

  I need her advice. Her support. Her wisdom. I need to be able to share with her.

  Mother finally meets my eyes. I lean forward, relishing the connection, but under the pressure of her gaze comes the oil of insecurity. She looks through me, not at me. What is she thinking?

  “Mother?”

  “No.” She stands from the table and walks to the door of her room. Before lifting the latch, she stares at the door with her back toward me. “I don’t want to know your story, Parvin. No one does.”

  3

  Mother doesn’t want to know about me. She doesn’t care that I survived. My gut clenches from the emotional slug.

  It’s because of Reid.

  It’s because of that biography. What started as my selfish desire to be remembered has turned into a storm cloud over my village. It didn’t feel right from the start. Well . . .

  I’ve certainly made myself memorable.

  Why did I do it? Why did I allow that selfishness to drive me to write about my life and then get involved with Skelley Chase? Why did I challenge the government’s Enforcer system and then desert my people?

  Only now do I see what I’ve done.

  I put Unity Village on the map. The government sees us now—more than ever. Maybe that’s why God kept me on Earth. My purpose is to restore shalom . . . and safety . . . in my village. Fix the damage I caused.

  Mother’s door closes. I look around the kitchen, taking in the familiar red water pump beneath the window, the wood stove to the left of it and the warmth of the cooking fire at my back. The small room feels even more constricting than before, yet an abyss of silence separates me from everyone.

  I’m truly alone.

  My people hate me. My family hates me. Maybe that’s how things need to be. Maybe, in order to trust God fully, I need to be utterly alone. That’s when my focus on Him is the clearest.

  “Parvin?”

  I turn with a sharp inhale. Willow is in the back doorway. Enforcer Kaphtor stands guard outside. She closes the door and whispers in a fierce warrior voice, “We must rescue Elm.”

  There are so many things to fix. So many things I never intended to happen. “I know—”

  “Now.” She’s no longer an alien in the USE. Her determination is back. “Two days are gone. We must rescue him. He is a hunter and can’t hunt in the Wall. He will starve, Parvin!”

  “Hush.” If Kaphtor hears us—if even Hawke hears us—we might be right back in the containment center with no way to save Elm. “We will. Tonight.”

  There’s nothing—no one—to hold me back. One thing I learned in the West is that everyone is meant to save lives.

  “Will your Enforcer man help us?”

  I shake my head. “No. We have to do this alone.”

  She gives me a small nudge toward the front door. “Ask him. He helped you when you were real sick. He looks at you nicely and carried you home.”

  “I know, but he’s being watched. It’s not safe for him.” I swallow. “Willow, do you . . . do you know who he is?”

  “Your friend.”

  I tug at the bandage around my left arm. Should I tell her? Who else knows? Would I endanger him by telling Willow? “He’s . . . he’s Jude’s brother.”

 
Her mouth drops open. “Jude-man?”

  I nod.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Hawke—uh, Solomon Hawke.”

  She grabs my hand with both of hers. “The Hawke will help us! Jude-man and Elm were friends.” As if convincing herself, she looks at the ground and says in a harsh voice, “He must help.”

  With a curt nod, she releases my hand and plops into a chair, no longer flinching against its woodenness. If her skull was made of glass, I imagine I’d see all manner of brain cogs spinning and clunking on how to save Elm, but she has no idea what this will take. She’s not from here. Her little sling and stones will do nothing against the cold metal Opening—and even those have been confiscated.

  “Willow, he’s already helped us.” I have a code for the Enforcer cars. “We just need to wait until nightfall. Then we will save Elm.”

  The rest of the afternoon passes in silence. I pace the kitchen awhile and finally sit. Mother remains in her room, oblivious to the dangerous road my mental adventurer trudges. Tawny comes back into the kitchen to prepare supper, so I re-enter the foreign space I used to call my room.

  The seclusion welcomes me with a stiff salute. “At ease.” Not a pinch of ease follows.

  Tawny’s trunk is now closed and I see on the windowsill what was obscured before—Reid’s empty wooden Clock. The one I believed so strongly was mine. All twelve zeroes shine with a sick, blood color.

  000.000.00.00.00

  Why is Tawny displaying this? Does she want to be reminded of her husband’s untimely death? The zeroes remind me of my invisible Numbers. I’m a bona fide Radical now and . . . it’s terrifying. The assurance I used to have in my set time is stripped from me. I feel out of control.

  Averting my eyes from the Clock, I grab my dumped pack items from the ground and sit on the bed I would be sleeping on if I stayed here tonight. I’d rather break the law, try to save a life. The worst that can happen from this rescue attempt is my captivity. I’m already a captive.

  The more I dwell on this fearlessness, the more reckless I become. What can stop me? Is this the reason You kept me alive? I stuff new belongings into my pack, including the small pouch of specie leftover from my Last Year Assessment. Who knows when I might have to bribe someone? Is this where You’re calling me?

  I have ideas on what to do—rescue Elm, try to stop the Council from using Jude’s information, get Willow home—but how do I know if these are my ideas or His? I guess I’ll have to do what I did in Ivanhoe, pursue what I believe is the best choice and commit it to God and to prayer.

  I pick up the NAB, somewhat tempted to write a journal entry, to process my thoughts and emotions through words. But I can’t. Skelley Chase gave me this NAB and who knows what he’s been monitoring.

  My sentra is the next best thing—a flat, camera-like object that, instead of taking photographs produces emotigraphs. Snapshots of emotions. I lift it and take an emotigraph of my changed bedroom. The thin emotigraph sheet is spit from the side of the sentra. I slip it into my pack. Hopefully it captures my mixed feelings, my plans of rescue, my loneliness.

  Tawny opens the door. “Supper.”

  I don’t even have time to look up before she closes the door.

  I’m not hungry, but I need to eat if I plan to travel all night.

  In the kitchen, Mother, Father, Willow, and Tawny sit around the table in the only four chairs. There’s no space for me.

  Tawny looks up with a raised eyebrow. She scans the table. “Oh, um.” She rises. “You can sit here. We’re not used to having five people in the house.”

  No, Tawny, we’re not. It’s always been four—Mother, Father, Reid, and me. “It’s okay.” I wave my hand. “I’m not hungry anyway.” The smell of corn chowder urges my stomach to growl out in opposition. “Willow, come say good night before you go to sleep.” I return to the bedroom, throwing her a wink.

  After changing into dark pants and a grey shirt, I wait by the window. Too bad I don’t have time for a bath. I was allowed a sprinkle of seconds to rinse when locked in the containment center—just enough to scrub Reid’s blood off my hand.

  I stuff Reid’s Clock into my pack with trembling fingers, afraid Tawny might come in any moment and know what I’m doing. But what’s it to her? This was my Clock just as long as it was Reid’s. I have a right to it . . . especially if it helps me free Elm. When I went through six months ago, the Wallkeeper had to send a Clock into the black hole in the Wall in order to open the door. Reid’s should work just fine.

  If we get the Wall open, I could return to the West.

  An empty hole in my heart sucks up my breath. The idea of the West without Jude feels as cold as this house. I can’t go. I have too many things to do on this side.

  Willow comes into the room an hour later wearing her old outfit—a pale pink skirt, loose blouse, and thick coat. Only instead of bare feet she wears old boots. They might have belonged to me once.

  “Let’s go.”

  I open the shutters inch by inch, holding my breath against a creak. How many times have I crawled through this window to escape family arguments and feel adventurous?

  Willow lands beside me with barely a sound. I peek around the front edge of the house. Hawke stands sentry at the front door, staring slightly to his right—away from us. I can only assume Kaphtor is at the back door.

  This is when I really test which side Hawke is on.

  I round the corner. We tiptoe down Straight Street, silent as creeping caterpillars. He knows we’re here. I’m sure of it. He could turn his head if he wanted, but he doesn’t. Only a few houses to go.

  We turn onto Center Road.

  Against the silent night, my heart thunders louder than a watchdog. Willow follows me up the road, glowing like a little ghost with her long white hair and pale skin.

  “Are we going to the train?” she asks.

  “It doesn’t run from Unity Village at night.” I jog as soft as possible and stop in a shadowed alley between two thatch houses. No one is out. Do we look too suspicious?

  “Horses?”

  I lean my head against the wood house siding. “No.”

  “Then we walk.” She takes my hand. “Which way?”

  My heart pounds so hard I might be sick. “We can’t walk. The Opening is two hundred miles north.”

  She waits as if the solution just needs to be spoken.

  I breathe out a small laugh. “Be patient, Willow, and follow me. I’m going to learn how to drive.”

  The courtyard of the county building is open and lit by street lamps. We crouch-run to where thick cords leash the two black beetle cars to the electric charging port. I tug on the first one.

  The plug doesn’t move, and a glowing code dial laughs at me with eight grinning zeroes. I’d laugh back if I didn’t have to stay silent. The string of numbers on Hawke’s note blink across my memory. I don’t even need to check the paper.

  Memorization has always been an odd, useless skill of mine. Now it feels like a superpower.

  I enter the numbers. The screen flashes red and returns to the line of zeroes. I pull on the cord. Nothing.

  “Maybe the other car?” Willow suggests, but before I crawl over to it, she inhales. “Parvin!”

  On instinct, I drop to my hands and knees. She curls in a ball beside me, pulling her coat over her white hair. Just her pale finger pokes out, pointing toward the county building.

  Hawke runs across the courtyard, up the steps, through the front doors. He and Kaphtor know we’re gone. Or maybe he’s turning us in.

  I wipe my sweating palm on my pants and turn toward the second car. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Welks,” she whispers.

  I enter the code into the second car, and . . . green! The code worked.

  The shriek of an alarm startles the night. A light rises from t
he top of the beetle car, spinning and flashing, giving away our position.

  “We need to go.”

  We sprint across the dirt back into the village. I weave through houses, avoiding the flickering candle streetlamps, and anticipate pursuit any moment. The code worked, but set off an alarm. Did Hawke know the car was rigged?

  Willow tugs on my sleeve. “That has wheels like in Ivanhoe.”

  I follow her gesture to where a rickety blue-and-rust metal bike tied by rope leans against the knobby trunk of a mossy tree. “We’ll be going over countryside more than anything, Willow. That won’t be much faster than walking.”

  She stomps toward the tree. “It will be faster.”

  “This is stealing.” But then I visualize myself tugging at the Enforcer charging port cord. I was okay with stealing then, why not now? Because the bike might belong to someone I know?

  Willow wheels the bike over to me. The handles are almost as high as her head. The front tire is nearly flat and the bike creaks as if it hasn’t been used since the week of Creation. That makes me feel better about stealing it, but the noise unnerves me.

  “Okay, come on.” I toss a handful of specie into the grass by the severed rope—not bothering to ask how Willow cut it—and pick up the bike by the frame with my right hand. I carry it only a few houses down before my forearm burns. I finally set it down on the walking path out of town. The path curves into a steady downhill, just wide enough for the bike.

  “Get on.” Willow holds the bike steady. “Then I get on in front of you.”

  “In front of me?” I squeak. “I’ve never ridden a bike, Willow.” I straddle the seat and move to grab the handlebars. My muscles turn limp. “And I have only one hand.”

  She’s unfazed. “We go downhill, just hold it tight. We do this for Elm.”