When We Hold Each Other Up, page 11
He turned his face from where the gate guard watched, joined by another soulkind. “I don’t have the energy for this.”
“Do you need to rest?”
“There’s a park a few blocks ahead.”
I walked slowly as he leaned on my arm, even as we both tried to fool the watching guards, acting as if Erhent still comforted me. Concrete walkways guided us toward a park with treetops I could just see above the buildings, the empty branches stretching into the sky. Unlike Open Gates, this city felt quiet, almost dulled, aching. People glanced at me, sometimes smiled, though their gaze slid past Erhent to the ground.
Erhent guided me around a corner, and the park opened between two buildings tall enough I craned my neck. A path cut through the space, with seating on either side. Erhent stumbled to the base of a hemlock and settled underneath it. The branches draped low, half-hiding us.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He rested his head against the tree and kicked off his boots. “I need a minute.”
I leaned next to him, our shoulders barely touching. Here, the city didn’t feel hurt like Open Gates. Instead, a hunger licked through my boots and throbbed in my soles, watched me from the roof corners like vultures.
“Do you feel that?” I asked. “It’s different than Open Gates.”
He pressed his palms to the loam. “It’s restless but—hungry. Hungry for more of everything.”
After a few minutes, he pulled into a crouch. “Welcome home, kid. Not exactly hospitality.”
I shouldered apart the branches as Erhent passed through. “Can we explore? I want to see if I remember anything.”
He dusted off his long coat. “Yes, let’s walk the city. Well, I’ll walk, you skate, see if the city responds.”
I unstrapped my skateboard from my pack. “I’m not as good as Alt and the others. The city might not care.” Erhent tied the laces and slung the boots over his shoulder. “I think it’s the spirit that counts.”
We passed onto a concrete walkway and out of the small park. I stepped onto the board. Even though this part of the city was all concrete, asphalt, and tar, Erhent trailed barefoot and barehanded like he walked in the woods. He took his slow, long steps, one hand pressed against the buildings that crowded the street. People stared at him, then seemed to catch themselves watching and wouldn’t look again.
To match his pace, I’d push forward to a flat, new piece of concrete and practice jumping the board. Once he passed me, I’d push to him and ease beside him for a few yards, then find another flat spot to practice. The concrete was so smooth and new, I kept braking by sliding my foot across the ground. My shoes would wear thin before long. Maybe the Open Gates crew had a fix. They’d be trickling to the city over the next week, trying to look less like a pack and more like strays.
After my experience at the gate, I didn’t expect the city to be so beautiful. Even on this cloudy, winter day, warmth seeped from the buildings. Many of the buildings were painted with bright, fresh colors, signaling spring would come again. Greenhouses on rooftops promised there would still be fresh tomatoes. The sidewalks carried poetry, and murals showed people gardening or wandering in a woodland with the city in the background. Even the sweeping electric lines drew my eye to the next thing, the next mural, the next garden rooftop, the next solar panel mosaic.
Signs, murals, and statues recounted the history of Haven City and told of how Harmonizers had brought peace during different climate wars. The Archives had told the history a different way, and I asked Erhent which was right. Neither told the whole story, he said.
The river ran through the city’s center, and even in the chill, people sat on benches and stone walls, sipping steaming drinks or eating boxed lunches. Erhent muttered about the lack of trees, how so many had been taken since he’d left a month ago. Crews spread fresh concrete, and we watched for a few minutes. I’d worked to remove concrete but hadn’t seen it poured. As if Erhent guessed my question, he said he wasn’t sure why they were making more when plenty of walkways and roads were still uncracked.
We’d seen more construction on our way into the city that morning, and the noise had finally made Brother part ways with us. He kept to the woods around the cave, which hadn’t been cleared yet, though a new dirt road had cut through a swathe of the forest.
My first glimpse of Haven City had explained the point of naming a place Open Gates. Walls wrapped around the city, visible from the hills. Parts had crumbled, and dense foliage or metal fencing filled the gaps. The road led to the biggest gap in the wall, with saplings and raised gardens separating people into lines.
We’d passed the morning watching and listening from the last set of hills before coming down into the city’s agriculture area, which had been stripped of trees for miles. In the predawn gray, trucks swarmed from a side gate and onto the main road. Through the binoculars, we watched them dig up the paved road, doubling the width. More trucks brought people to the fields. Through the binoculars, it looked like big, yellow machines took bites out of the land.
Tears had filled Erhent’s eyes. He’d explained the area around the city had been a woodland. People had come to relax or forage or see the stars. Soulkind would come to rest and restore. What would possess them to cut it all down?
As we’d come from the hills and joined the others walking into the city, a resolve had flowed over Erhent, like shrugging on a familiar coat. Even the night before, he’d asked if I was sure I wanted to go to the city, but now, he led the way.
At a market, signs advertised the day’s surpluses—beeswax candles, cherry tomatoes, hard cider—and which new goods had arrived, like fresh hardwood and clay. My favorite streets were packed with restaurants. Using the same basic ingredients, so many options were available. Noodles, sandwiches, salads, grilled meat, fish, rice dishes—I wanted to try it all.
“Anything feel familiar?” Erhent asked.
“Not really.” It all felt too new. The buildings tall as trees that Erhent explained were people’s homes, the sharp, acrid smells, the vehicles Erhent kept telling me to watch out for (and some instinct warned a boxy black vehicle followed us). The city’s weirdness also came from missing things. No birds chirping, no squirrels complaining about my noise, no spiderwebs glittering in the dew. I felt out of place rather than familiarity.
We walked for a few hours and still had more city to see. Like Open Gates, the city broke into sections. Places where people lived seemed separate from the places where people gathered, like markets and libraries and two museums, one for art and one for history. According to my welcome pamphlet, I’d report to the history museum, then the library for an introduction to the city since I hadn’t been registered before—an “exchange of energy and knowledge” was how the instructions were worded.
The map on the back of the pamphlet listed sections of the city as “under construction,” including the beaches where we hoped to find the Riverroaders. We headed toward the lake, anyway. The temperature dropped, and haze obscured what horizon was visible between the buildings. Before we could see the lake, orange barricades blocked the roads. Metal and wooden sheets covered doors and windows. A sign taller than me read: Harmonizers and Humans: Building a Better Tomorrow.
I climbed up one of the barricades, but the setting sun cast shadows between the buildings, the water barely glinting. Machines growled and thrummed, probably closer to the shore. Black smoke trickled over the skyline.
“What do you think happened to the Riverroaders?” I asked.
“Nothing good.”
We turned around and followed the map toward a green square labeled Harmony Park. The streets had become busier as long vehicles dropped off people at different corners. Lights flickered in the tall apartment blocks like so many eyes coming awake. Shops opened, and people joined us on the sidewalk.
“It didn’t used to be this way,” Erhent said. “There’s no need to work like this. It’s like they have nearly half of the population on some sort of construction crew.”
Two oaks spread naked branches over the iron gate to Harmony Park. The small park opened onto a large, tiled plaza, with a fountain in the center, turned off for the winter. Across the park, a domed building glittered in the sunset. People in city clothes like the Harmonizers wore walked down the tall steps.
Erhent took a quick breath. He swayed and leaned against the gate. “How could they.” He stumbled into the park, and I hurried after him. He dropped to his knees where raised concrete marked the beginning of the tiled plaza. He pressed his hands into the winter-brown grass.
I crouched next to him. People, some of them Harmonizers from their paleness and height, stared at us as they crossed from the ornate building into the city. I touched his shoulder. “Erhent?”
“Just like outside the city, the woods. This was a beautiful grove, with old, old trees. Trees that had seen the changes of the centuries. Food trees—walnut and apple and pawpaw trees. Morel mushrooms loved to grow under the apple trees.” He pointed toward the fountain. “A cherry tree there produced the sweetest fruit. And there was wild grape growing up the side of city hall.” He motioned to the right. “And there, aspens that always sang in the wind. There were birds and a possum family and foxes came here.” He pulled himself upright and walked to the fountain. “The idea was that cities should be governed from a green space to remind the leaders and the people of how everything was interconnected.”
“There isn’t much green left.” By the gate, all that remained was a dozen trees, a stretch of grass shorn close.
Erhent shaded his eyes against the sunset glaring off the windows. “I imagine that’s the point.”
While Erhent struggled to take in the plaza, a group had gathered in the remaining grass. A table built out of stacked crates and a board held platters of food, from the savory smells. A person lifted a sign attached to a broken stick: Free Food.
I nudged Erhent and pointed at the gathering. “I’m going to eat. Want some chicory coffee if they have it?”
He passed a hand over his face. “That’s not how it works around here. Food isn’t free.”
“Why not?”
He straightened his coat and took a deep breath. “The Harmonizers say it costs energy to produce it and ship it from the farms outside the city, so you have to pay. That’s what you did at the gate.” “People have to go through that just to eat?”
“Humans, yes.”
We walked over to the group, which had formed a line. Some ate sitting on the grass or leaning against the few trees. Others hurried out of the park as if they’d done something wrong.
“You!”
Erhent whipped around, trying to shove me behind him. A familiar red-bearded person stepped from behind the table and jogged toward us.
I waved. “Brand! You’re okay.”
Erhent tried to step back as Brand hurried toward him, but Brand caught him in a back-slapping embrace. Erhent grunted.
“You tried to tell us, and I made it all worse.” Brand reached over Erhent and gripped my shoulder. “We should have listened.”
Erhent ducked away from Brand and smoothed his coat. “Is everyone all right?”
“They took our boats,” he said. “We wanted to leave again, go upstream and winter in the valley, but they wouldn’t let us. We’ve been trying to do what we can here.”
Another person walked over, younger than Brand but older than me, with black hair braided down the side, contrasting with their pale skin. “Brand, who’s this?”
“The ones I was telling you about. The ones who tried to warn us. Eduardo and Rowan.” Brand gripped the other’s shoulders. “This is Raven. They helped us when we first arrived.”
Erhent offered his hand, and Raven gripped his forearm. “I go by Erhent, while I’m here.”
Brand sucked in his breath. “Did you say—”
“Holy shit!” Raven smoothed their hands over their hair and down the braid. “You were at the gate today.”
Erhent nodded.
“You have to teach me,” Raven said. “But, shit, we have to get you out of here, or they’ll shut us down.”
“Why?” I asked. “What’s going on here?”
“With energy rates going up,” Raven said, “we’ve been feeding people, so they don’t have to pay the extra for food. But if you can teach us how to do that restoration thing, then we’d make some real change.”
Erhent tilted his head. “What do you mean? Nobody taught you how to give?” As Raven tried to explain, a shriek crackled across the park, echoing off the tile and buildings.
“Ah, shit,” Raven said.
The black vehicle that followed us around the city had parked at the gate, and two Harmonizers walked through the park. The way they swaggered reminded me of the Harmonizers that had come for my family, killing the trees along the way. I imagined these two might stretch out their hands and claim one of the few remaining oaks.
Raven swore again, but Erhent waved them off. “It’s all right.”
He met the two Harmonizers away from the group, even though the taller one kept staring at us. A few minutes later, they returned to their vehicle and drove off. Brand let out a long breath.
“What’d you say?” Raven asked.
Erhent smirked. “Oh, just that I, Erhent, heard about their wonderful city and how pleased I was to see humans and soulkind helping each other like nature intended.”
Brand gripped his shoulder. “You saved us all getting fined.”
“In energy?” Erhent asked.
Raven nodded. “They’re trying to wear us down. All our rents just went up, so that’s more of our energy, gone. Then they fine us, make it too expensive for us Souls to go out of the city to feed, even if the woods were still there.”
The thought of being fed on over and over like that made my chest tighten. “Why don’t you just leave?”
“It’s my home,” Raven said. “I love this place. I don’t want to see us all hurting like this.”
“We’re here to help, if you think we can,” Erhent said. While Brand returned to serving food, Erhent explained how more skaters were on their way from Open Gates to volunteer, and how he hoped to use his recognition to influence the older Harmonizers. Raven asked him to first teach them how to give energy back, so Erhent took them to one of the large oak trees to practice.
I stepped onto my board and carved figure eights around the fountain. The anxiety squeezing my chest eased with each glide. Tomorrow, Chasim would arrive with Alt, so I could learn some new tricks.
Once Raven and Brand’s group had finished distributing the food, Erhent brought me a plate. We sat together on the edge of the fountain as I stuffed sticky rice balls into my mouth.
“Raven has a place for us to stay,” Erhent said. “The visitor quarters are in an expensive tower, so it will save us some energy to stay with them instead.”
I nodded. The tightness in my chest returned, and I wrapped up the last rice ball, pocketing it.
Erhent nudged me. “You okay, kid?”
I rested my elbows on my knees and let my hair fall over my face. “I thought I’d know what to do once I got here, but it just hurts. My feet hurt, my chest hurts, being fed on hurts.”
Erhent squeezed his hands together hard enough a knuckle cracked. “I should have taken care of this years ago, when I saw the changes coming to the city. But I ran. I knew other soulkind were working with humans to help, but I didn’t want to be the hero again. I was just so tired.”
I placed my hand over his, and he relaxed. “The other Harmonizers know better. They’re choosing to make this harm, so that’s why we have to stay here and help. That’s what my family taught me to do.”
“You’re right.” He toed the skateboard away from me. “Others have already been working hard to balance that pain.” He stood and easily stepped onto the board. “We have to remember, we aren’t working alone.” He pushed the board forward, set his feet, and jumped.
The board rotated under his feet.
“What!” I shot off the fountain. “You—you never said! That’s so unfair!”
He grinned. “It’s the only trick I know, I promise. I’ll teach it to you tomorrow.”
I ran after him. “No way, right now! Show me again.”
The second time I was fed on was a fine for skateboarding. That’s when Erhent joined the Harmonizer council. While I skated, Erhent worked with the local organizers who had been protesting the energy hikes since they began two years ago. Most of the soulkind were very young, as it seemed elder soulkind either believed in the city expansion or had left the city. Erhent taught them how to give energy back to those who had been fed on. He kept himself replenished by walking the city at night, trailing, just like he would when we traveled. Usually, I’d skate with him until my legs wobbled or I couldn’t stop yawning. He’d walk all night sometimes, but it didn’t seem to be enough. He looked more worn, even as held tight to the hero the stories claimed him to be.
Compared to the soulkind that chased me down and shoved me off my board, Erhent looked less like a returning warrior and more like a storyteller retired by the fire.
I hit the sidewalk, rolling off my shoulder and onto my skinned knees. The Harmonizer hauled me upright. They were pale as the new concrete with shaved white hair signaling this Harmonizer was one of the glacial soulkind. The propaganda for the city said no hierarchy existed, but since any soulkind could claim a human was “out of balance” and take from them, that didn’t hold true. The glacial soulkind were the most likely to cause trouble for humans as opposed to soulkind like Erhent and Raven, who hadn’t come from the melting glaciers and often supported humans.
The kids I’d been teaching how to skateboard had been smarter than me and took off the moment this soulkind had turned the corner. At least they had the boards I’d given them. If they had the courage to keep practicing, I’d find them again.
The Harmonizer shoved me against the wall of an apartment building. “Sign says no skateboarding.” They ground the heel of their hand against my skull. “Fine is one thousand calories, but you tried to run away, so I’m going to double it.”
