Scarecrow

Luna Windsor didn’t come to the reading room on Sunday night.

That wasn’t strange, by itself. Sunday was the night she had dinner with her father, at the officers’ mess, when he was in the dome. She always went. She always came back late, and quiet, and colder than when she’d left, and sat down across the table from me without saying anything about it, and opened the book, and asked me something hard.

But she always came back.

I waited until ten. I read the chapter on the inner ear twice, because of Toby, and the one on sound once, because of Toby, and then I wrote down three questions about the cochlea that I’d have asked her if she’d been there. The lamp hummed. The water in the glass by her chair, the one she always froze without noticing she’d done it, stayed water.

At half past ten I closed the book.

At a quarter to eleven I went to find her.

She wasn’t in the girls’ barracks. I knew that without going in. I could see through the wall, if I looked, and I didn’t look properly, because that would have been wrong. But I didn’t need to. The girls’ barracks was warm. Every bed in it was warm. If Luna Windsor had been in there, one corner of it would have been cold.

She wasn’t in the mess. She wasn’t at the fern. Risa was at the fern, very late, sitting against the metal stand in the dark with her knees up, and she opened her eyes when I came round the corner and said, before I’d asked anything:

”Up.”

”Up where?”

”Up,” said Risa. She pointed at the ceiling of the corridor. ”An hour ago. I felt her go past. Her heart was doing a hundred and ten, and it was going up.” She closed her eyes again. ”She doesn’t go fast. Ever. Her heart’s the slowest in the cave. Fifty-two. Like a clock.” A pause. ”It wasn’t fifty-two.”

”Thank you.”

”Lucas.”

I stopped.

”It’s the first of the month,” said Risa, without opening her eyes. ”Tonight’s the rain.”

I’d never seen the rain.

I’d heard about it. Everyone in the dome had. Once a month, on the first night, the city’s engineers opened the jets that ran along the struts of the dome, high up, near the top, and for three hours water came down over everything. Over the towers. Over the roof gardens and the reservoirs and the parks on the upper floors. Washing the dust off. Filling the tanks. Watering the trees that had been planted where nobody could see them from below.

Liam called it the shower. Garnet called it the sky crying, which Genny had told her and then regretted. Toby, who’d grown up on the lower floors, had never seen it at all. The lower floors were under the upper floors, and the rain fell on the upper floors, and drained off them, and came down the inside of the walls in pipes, and the lower floors just heard it. Three hours of rushing in the walls, once a month.

I’d grown up outside.

Outside, it rained maybe twice a year. Gray rain. It came down out of a gray sky in fat slow drops that left spots on the porch boards, and tasted of rust, and Father always went out into it anyway, every time, bareheaded, and stood in the middle of the green field with his arms out and his face turned up, and let it fall on him. And Mother stood in the doorway and shook her head and said Trevor, and didn’t come in.

I’d never been in clean rain.

I went to the armory.

The door behind it had no handle on this side. Luna had said so, the night of the moon. Painted the same color as the wall. You’d never see it if you weren’t looking.

I was looking.

I didn’t open it. I asked the latch, very politely, to stop holding on. It let go. The door swung inward onto a narrow stair cut into the rock, going up and up into the dark, with a thin iron rail on one side.

I could hear the rain.

Not loud. Far away. A soft steady rushing, at the top of the stair, like wind in wheat. I climbed toward it. My rib didn’t hurt anymore. It hadn’t since Thursday. I didn’t think about that.

There were a lot of steps. Three hundred and eleven. I counted them, because counting was what I did now. And at the top, there was another door, and this one had a handle on my side, and I opened it, and the rain came in.

The gallery was soaking.

It ran round the base of the dome like the brim of a hat, the way I remembered it. On one side the gold glass, curving up and away. On the other side the railing, and the long drop, and the city. And between them, in the narrow walkway, the rain was falling.

It came from high up. Higher than I could see. From the struts, near the top of the dome, where the jets were. It fell all that way down through the dark, through the gold light of the glass, and when it got to us it was soft and fine and steady and warm, almost warm, like the water in the roof pool. It ran down the inside of the dome in long shining sheets. It drummed on the iron of the railing. It fell past the railing into the city, all the way down, onto the towers and the roof gardens, which glittered with it, a long way below, like a field of wet lamps.

It smelled of nothing.

That was the strangest thing. Rain outside smelled of rust and dust and something burnt. This smelled of nothing at all. Clean. Like the air in the cave, but wet.

I was soaked in about four seconds.

And then I saw her.

She was sitting on the floor of the gallery, a little way along, with her back against the gold glass of the dome and her knees pulled up to her chest. Under the little clear window. The one we’d looked at the moon through.

She was soaked too. All the way through. Her silver hair was plastered flat to her head and stuck along her jaw, darker than I’d ever seen it. Her gray training clothes were black with water. She had her arms round her knees, and her chin on her arms, and her eyes open, looking out through the railing at the lights of the city, and she wasn’t moving.

And the rain was falling on her.

That was what stopped me. That was what made me stand there in the doorway at the top of three hundred and eleven steps with the water running into my eyes.

The rain was falling on Luna Windsor, and it was staying rain.

It wasn’t freezing. Not on her hair. Not on her shoulders. Not on the floor around her. Every glass of water she’d ever sat near had frozen. The fountain in the Town had frozen. The ground in the red jungle had frozen in a ring around her feet. Water did what she told it. She’d said so. She’d said it like it was the simplest thing in the world.

And she was sitting in the rain, and she wasn’t telling it anything at all.

I didn’t say anything. I walked along the gallery, through the rain, and sat down on the wet floor beside her, with my back against the glass. Not close. An arm’s length. The way you’d sit down next to an animal you didn’t know.

She didn’t look round.

”You came up the stair,” she said.

”Risa told me.”

”Risa.” A pause. ”She can hear my heart.”

”She said it wasn’t fifty-two.”

Luna was quiet for a long moment. The rain came down. It ran off the end of her nose. She didn’t wipe it.

”It’s never been anything but fifty-two,” she said. ”Not since I was eight. I taught it.” She looked out at the city. ”You can teach a heart, you know. If you’re cold enough. You just make it slower. And slower. Until nobody can hear anything in it at all.” Another pause. ”Father’s is forty-eight. I’ve been trying to get mine there since I was eleven.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I didn’t say anything.

We sat in the rain.

Far below us, the city glittered. The water ran down the dome behind our backs in a long warm sheet, and I could feel it through my shirt, and I could see, if I looked, every drop of it, and what it was made of, and how simple that was. Two small things and one big one, holding hands. The simplest thing in the world.

Luna Windsor turned her head and looked at me. Her eyes were very pale in the gold light. Her face was wet. I couldn’t tell how much of it was rain.

”I’m going to lead you down,” she said.

She told me about dinner.

Not all at once. In pieces, the way she always told things, as if each one had to be taken out and checked before it could be put down. The officers’ mess, on the hundred-and-twelfth floor. White cloths on the tables. Silver that nobody in the city below had seen since before the war. Her father at the head of a long table with six other officers, and Luna at the far end of it, the only person under forty, very straight, not eating much.

He hadn’t spoken to her through the soup. He hadn’t spoken to her through the fish. He’d talked to the other officers, about supply lines and launch windows and a ship called the Meridian, which was the name of the ship we’d go up in. She hadn’t known that. Nobody had told us that.

And then, over the coffee, he’d put his cup down, and looked down the long table at her, and said it. In front of all of them. In the same voice he’d used in the briefing room. The voice that never had to be raised.

Sergeant Okafor will name Squad Eight’s leader at the end of the month. It will be you. And Squad Eight will be the first squad down.

Then he’d picked his cup back up, and turned to the officer on his left, and gone on talking about the Meridian.

”That was all,” said Luna. ”That was the whole conversation.” She looked at the rain. ”The other officers congratulated me. One of them shook my hand. Colonel Asher. He said a Windsor at the front, as it should be.” A pause. ”I said thank you, sir.”

”Okafor doesn’t pick,” I said. ”She said. I don’t pick. You do. The squad picks.”

”Okafor will name me,” said Luna Windsor, very quietly. ”Because my father has told her to. And she’ll hate it. And she’ll do it anyway, because she’s a sergeant and he’s a general.” She was quiet. ”And the squad will agree, because Seraphina won’t want Liam, and Liam will want you, and you’ll say no, and Toby will do whatever you say.” She looked at me. ”Tell me I’m wrong.”

I thought about it.

She wasn’t wrong.

”First squad down,” I said.

”Priority One,” said Luna. ”Crane told you. He didn’t tell you what it means.” She pulled her knees in tighter. ”Priority One isn’t just the big kit. It’s the first pod out of the Meridian. The first landing. Before everyone else. Somewhere he’s chosen.” A pause. ”Somewhere nobody’s been.”

”Why?”

”Because you’re the biggest seed they’ve got,” said Luna. ”And you plant the biggest seed first. Where you most need it to grow.” She looked out through the railing. ”And because my father wants a Windsor standing next to it when it does.”

The rain fell.

”He didn’t say that,” I said.

”He didn’t have to.” She was quiet. ”He’s never said anything to me he didn’t have to. Not once. In seventeen years.”

And then she told me the thing she’d never told anyone.

I knew it was that, before she said it. I could tell from the way she went still. Not cold-still, the way she went when someone said orphan or asset in the reading room. Another kind. The way the fern had gone still, the first morning, before it decided to live.

”I’m frightened,” said Luna Windsor.

The rain came down.

”I’ve always been frightened,” she said. ”Of everything. Of him. Of the cold. Of the water in the glass. When I was six I froze our cook’s hand to a kettle, by accident, because he dropped a pan behind me and I jumped, and they had to take two of his fingers.” She was looking straight ahead, at nothing. ”Father didn’t punish me. He was pleased. He said now you know what you are. And he gave the cook money and the cook went away and I never saw him again.” A pause. ”His name was Albert. He used to give me the ends of the bread.”

I didn’t say anything.

”So I stopped being frightened,” said Luna. ”Out loud. I stopped jumping. I taught my heart to go slow. I taught my face not to do anything. I taught myself to be cold all the time, everywhere, a little, so nothing could ever surprise me into being very cold.” She breathed in. It shook. ”And it worked. For nine years it worked. And then you showed me the moon. And I smiled. And I didn’t even know I was going to.”

”Luna—”

”Nine of thirty-four, Lucas.”

I stopped.

”You told me,” she said. ”On Wednesday. In the reading room. You said you tell Windsor, because you’re going to anyway, and you told me.” She turned her head and looked at me. ”Nine. And they’re going to put me in front. In front of you, and Liam, and Seraphina, and Toby. And when we land, wherever it is, whatever’s there, whatever they cut out of the strip, I’m going to be the one who says go and stop and left and right. And if I’m wrong—”

She didn’t finish.

”I’m frightened I’ll get you killed,” said Luna Windsor. ”And I’m frightened that when it happens I’ll be so frightened I’ll freeze. All of it. All of you. The way I froze Albert’s hand.” Her voice cracked. Just slightly. Just once. ”And I’ve never said that to anyone. Not once. Because if I said it out loud, it would be true, and he’d know, and he’d say that’ll do.”

She put her forehead down on her knees.

”So I came up here,” she said, muffled. ”Where it rains. And I sat in it. And I didn’t freeze it.” A long pause. ”I wanted to know if I could.”

I sat there for a long time, in the rain, and didn’t say anything.

Not because I didn’t have anything to say. Because I had too much, and most of it was wrong. You won’t. That was wrong. I didn’t know that. You’ll be fine. That was wrong too. Nobody knew that. Nine of thirty-four.

Father would have known what to say. Father always knew. Or he knew what not to say, which was the same thing. I tried to think what he’d have done, sitting on a wet floor next to a frightened girl at the top of the world.

And then I knew. Because I’d seen him do it. A hundred times. On the porch. With Mother.

He’d have told her the truth.

”I counted to forty-one,” I said.

She lifted her head.

”In the locker room,” I said. ”With my eyes shut. The whole time they were kicking me. I counted because I was so frightened I couldn’t think. Not of them. Of me. Of what I’d do if I opened my eyes.” I looked at the rain on my hands. ”I’m frightened all the time, Luna. Every day. On the field. In the sim. In the reading room, when I read about hearts. I’m frightened I’ll turn Liam to glass by accident because he made me jump. I’m frightened of the ring in my eyes. I’m frightened of whatever’s under the boards.” I breathed. ”Everybody in this cave thinks I’m not frightened of anything. Sigmund thinks it. He said so. You make everything look easy.” I looked at her. ”I’m not easy. I’m slow. That’s all. I’m slow because I’m frightened.”

Luna Windsor was looking at me.

”And in the jungle,” I said. ”In the sim. When the first construct came up out of the mud, right in front of you. Do you remember?”

”Yes.”

”You jumped,” I said. ”I saw you. And the ground froze. In a ring. Right up to the edge of Toby’s boots.” I looked at her. ”And stopped. He was right there. A step away. And you were frightened, and you froze the ground, and you didn’t freeze him.”

She didn’t say anything.

”You’ve been frightened every day for nine years,” I said, ”and you’ve never once frozen anyone since you were six. Not one person. Not Liam, when he talks through every drill. Not Seraphina, when she shouted at you on the beam. Not the boys in Squad Six, at breakfast, after Brock.” I paused. ”You froze their cup. And it cracked. And you didn’t touch them.”

The rain fell on both of us.

”That’s not somebody who freezes when she’s frightened,” I said. ”That’s somebody who’s been choosing, every single day, for nine years, what to freeze. Even frightened. Especially frightened.” I looked down at my hands. ”My father always asked how many were coming back. Before every operation. Okafor told me. He said it didn’t change whether you went. It changed how you went.” I looked up. ”You’ll ask the number, Luna. Every time. You’ll want to know. That’s why you’ll be good at it.”

Luna Windsor looked at me for a very long time.

”And if I’m not?” she said.

”Then I’ll be a step behind you,” I said. ”And so will Toby. And Liam. And Seraphina.”

She didn’t cry.

I thought she might. For a moment, her face did something I’d never seen it do, all of it at once, like ice going on a pond in spring, the whole surface moving. And then it stopped. And she turned and looked out through the railing at the wet glittering city, and breathed in, slowly, all the way, and out.

And I heard it.

Not with my ears. I’m not Risa. But I could see it, if I looked, and for once I let myself look. The small strong muscle in the middle of her, under the wet gray shirt, doing the thing hearts do. Slow. Steady. Not fifty-two. Faster than that. Seventy, maybe. Seventy-five.

A person’s heart. Not a clock.

”Don’t tell anyone,” said Luna Windsor.

”I won’t.”

”Not Liam. Not Seraphina. Not your mother.”

”I won’t.”

”Not Risa,” said Luna. ”She already knows the number. She’ll know what it means.”

”I won’t tell anyone,” I said. ”I promise.”

She nodded, once. Then she held out her hand, palm up, flat, into the rain. Water pooled in it. Clear, and shining, and running over the edges of her fingers.

”I’ve never made it snow,” she said.

I looked at her.

”Ice,” she said. ”Frost. Glass, on cups. I’ve frozen fountains and floors and rails. But I’ve never made snow. Snow’s frozen on the way down. You have to catch it falling. You have to be gentle, or it comes out as hail.” She looked at the water in her palm. ”I’ve never been gentle enough.”

”Try,” I said.

She looked at me.

Then she looked up, into the rain, into the gold dark of the dome, where the water came down out of the struts. And her face went still. Not cold-still. The other kind.

And for a moment nothing happened.

And then the rain falling past the railing, just there, just in front of us, in a space about as wide as a door, went soft. And white. And slow.

It drifted. It turned over in the gold light. Big soft flakes, as big as fingernails, tumbling and floating and falling past the gallery and down, down, past the railing, out over the city, in a slow white cloud, toward the wet glittering roofs a long way below.

Snow. Inside a dome. In a city that hadn’t seen snow since the year the Act was signed, at the gate, when the soldiers made the families wait.

Luna Windsor watched it fall with her mouth slightly open, the way she’d watched the moon.

She didn’t smile. Not quite.

But her heart was at eighty, and she let it be.

We went down the stair at one in the morning, soaked, and dripped all the way along the corridor past the armory. At the door of the girls’ barracks she stopped, and turned round, and looked at me.

”You came up three hundred and eleven steps,” she said, ”in the rain, at eleven o’clock at night, with a cracked rib.”

”It’s healed.”

”I know,” said Luna Windsor. ”I’m going to write that down.” She paused. ”Thank you, Lucas.”

She’d never thanked me before. Not once. Not in three months. Not for the moon. Not for the mug. I’d thought Windsors just didn’t. It turned out nobody had ever come up a stair after one.

She went in.

I stood in the corridor for a while.

Then I went back to the barracks, and got into bed wet, and Liam said ”Why are you wet,” in his sleep, and I said ”It rained,” and he said ”Oh,” and went back to sleep.

The next morning, in the mess, the girl from Squad Four who’d said it’s green was telling her whole table that her mother had sent a note from the ninetieth floor, and the note said that last night, during the rain, for about four minutes, over the Eastgate parks, it had snowed.

Nobody knew how.

At the far end of the Windsors’ table, Luna Windsor sat very straight with her porridge in front of her and didn’t look up. The water in the glass by her elbow was water. Liquid. All the way through.

I didn’t look at her. I’d promised.

But on the shelf over my bed, that night, in notebook fifteen, under Day 87, there was one line. Small. Nothing anyone else would understand.

Eighty. She let it be.