When We Hold Each Other Up, page 9
I sat beside him. “I didn’t. You asked me not to.” I unscrewed the thermos lid and poured him a mug. I offered him the handle.
He let out a breath, and his shoulders relaxed. His hand shook as he took the mug, careful our fingers didn’t touch. His skin was red and chapped, but I knew not from the cold. “I should stop pretending. I’m not Eduardo—not just Eduardo.” He cupped the mug in both hands, staring into it. Steam swirled over his face. “How long was I gone?” “A whole week.”
“Was I?” He took a sip and his hands steadied. “Hmm, a whole week. We don’t have much time, then.” He sat straighter and shook his head, so his hair fell back. “Are you ready to leave the Archivists? You need to be with your family.”
I fiddled with the thermos, breathing in the sweet-smokey scent. While Erhent was gone, I’d talked with Reese and Cara about where to go next. They would repair their radio and had already rigged a system to pass along the message on smaller, personal radios positioned by scouts and foragers, but going back to my family felt like a misstep, like choosing to take the same trail because I knew every root and dip. Cara suggested we continue north to a smaller city called Open Gates. No Harmonizers controlled this city, and humans worked together with Harmonizers to help the city balance and heal. She thought we could learn what a healthy city looked like in order to help people understand why this expansion was an imbalance. Hopefully, we could convince more people not to simply shrug and say, leave it the Harmonizers.
“You wanted to leave before,” I said. “I insisted we didn’t, then you got hurt. If you think it’s time to go, I’ll trust you.” I took a deep breath. “But I don’t think the story is over. The people in the valley—”
He set aside the mug. “The Archivists know what to do. Our work is done. Except taking you to your family.”
The words spun around my chest, and I shut my mouth before I said something angry. Without the radio, we’d warned just a handful of people. If the Harmonizers wanted to keep us quiet enough to come to the Archive and break their equipment, then it just meant this story was more important than I knew. I needed to keep telling it. I didn’t want to keep going for the adventure, but because I’d have to face the city someday. I couldn’t keep running.
I poured myself a mug and clutched it to my chest for warmth. So close to the lake, the air felt crisp but heavy, like it might snow. Not clean, though, as a sour taste slicked my tongue. “Cara told me about another city called Open Gates. They need to be warned—the smaller radios can’t reach them over the hills. I’m not afraid. I believe in our story. Breaking the radio is another part of it. I want to know where it all leads.”
“Your story will not stop them.” A bite edged his words, and I leaned back. He stood, glaring down at me. “If the Harmonizers want to expand the city, they will until they are satisfied.” He pointed toward the shadowy hills. “They’ll take all of it, especially if you care about it. You are safest with your family far away from here, and you can keep telling this story.” He took a shaky breath. “Tell how you saved the old hero Erhent in an apple orchard. You can keep spreading this warning and hope the Harmonizers remember we don’t have to take, we can heal.”
I took a long sip of the chicory coffee, then slowly stood. His brittleness had cracked into a hurt and fear older than I could understand. Back then, I didn’t know what to say to help. Even now, I struggle with those kinds of words.
I reached for his hand, but he stepped aside.
“What did I say—never touch a Harmonizer!”
I stayed still, my hand offered.
He paced back and forth, his feet bare. “You don’t understand, Rowan. I took care of the Harmonizers. I put one in the aspen grove, and the other two under these hills. Once those places heal, they will have the strength to wake and walk again, hopefully understanding how to heal, not just take.” His eyes were as bright as the moon glancing off the quarry lake. “When I found them, they threatened you. They threatened this place. They said how the city was going to spread and take this all away, just like the old days. That’s what they want, to control everything, to control you.”
“I’m not afraid.”
He stomped his bare foot into the rock, cratering it. “You should be! I fought and fought and fought! And it was still destroyed. My homes were destroyed, the trees I loved destroyed, the beings and places I loved starving and flooding and ripped apart when there wasn’t enough oil or water or soil. And I fought it so hard. I did everything, everything! And it’s all gone!” His words echoed off the rock. He took a heaving breath. “I won’t fight like that again. There’s no reason to fight because they will just take it all away.”
The stories I knew of Erhent, the rebel and hero, the glimpses from the database—I saw all the inspiring victories, the times he’d held back worse destruction or saved people. This place might not be the future he fought for, but it was still beautiful and thriving and alive, even if he forgot.
He limped toward me, leaving footprints that glistened wet with blood. Twice, he reached for my hand before I just did it for him. He dragged me into the tight, long hug meant to work through fear. “I would have been there, when—when you ran away from the city. I knew terrible things were happening, like what the Harmonizers used to do. Breaking up families, people disappearing. It was starting again. I might have passed you on the street, and I did nothing. All I had to do was say my name, and maybe I could have stopped this. You wouldn’t be in danger again.” He sighed, swaying, and I pulled him to the ground, sitting with him. “I don’t want to fight anymore, Rowan. I just want to see you home.”
He was right. It was time for me to go home, but not to Gran and Grandmother. If the Harmonizers weren’t going to keep the city in balance, then I wanted to learn how. Home. That’s where change was made. I’d come from the city, and so had Erhent—we could go home again.
He stretched out his leg, blood pooling around his foot. He huffed. “Some legend I am. More like a silly old man stubbing his toe in the dark.”
I chuckled, and he started laughing.
“I’m sorry for shouting,” he said.
I offered him a handkerchief. “Gran says everyone needs to shout sometimes.”
He pressed it against his heel. “Well, have I scared you off toward home?”
“Yes, but not the home you wanted.”
He tied off the handkerchief, then leaned back on his hands, his face to the moon. “I know. I can already hear you telling it. A stranger came to town, and that community accepted him with hospitality. When that community was in danger, they worked together to stay safe and keep that danger from others. Two of them went on a quest to find others and warn them. Those two—those two knew they couldn’t run away if they truly wanted to help, so they went home.”
I squeezed his hand. “One as old as starlight.”
Erhent returned the squeeze. “The other as young as a snowmelt stream.”
Part III
Plant sequoias.
Chapter Seven
Why Erhent followed me, some kid who couldn’t imagine how fast death can come, I didn’t understand other than love. I wanted the hero’s stories to be real, to walk with this figure as old as history, to stride into the city and stop the bad Harmonizers, to face them down like he did at the cave. And then every winter at the cave, we’d tell that story. Erhent would come visit from the city or I would go visit him, and he’d show me how everything was healing. I truly believed that’s how the story would go. “Maybe it will remember me instead.”
At the request of the Archivists, we first headed north over the mountain foothills to the next city, Open Gates. They had emissaries in Haven City and would have advice on how to help those already struggling for change in Haven, since people were surely already organizing. The people of Open Gates traveled to different cities and helped restore them, even those under Harmonizer control. Erhent needed to gather his strength after fighting the Harmonizers who attacked the Archives, so we agreed to take our warning to Open Gates before going home to face the city.
We reached Open Gates four days later, over the biggest hills I’d ever climbed. The clear weather held, and the deeper snow slicked hard enough to walk on. Brother often led the way, picking the least-snowy path. Sometimes, Erhent cleared a trail with his long, slow strides, the snow melting into watery rivulets that twisted away like veins through the brown undergrowth.
After Erhent took back his name, he became even quieter. Maybe it had more to do with winter’s softness or his hardening resolve, but I let the quiet stretch and settle. I loved how the snow tamped down the natural noises, and how that made the snap of a stick or the mumble of spoken word that much louder. Some of my favorite memories wintering at the cave were hauling water for tea and the transition from the quiet, snowy woods, the burbling stream, to the chattering cave as all fifty of my family and community packed inside the warm walls. Whenever the voices rose too loud, I’d wrap a wool blanket around my shoulders and snowshoe through the woods, sometimes just for a few minutes and sometimes for hours.
Walking with Erhent felt easy like that, now. Somehow, we’d connected across time. I still believed in purpose—that we could do something to push back the centuries-old forces trying to take too much, like the stories promised. I couldn’t let that slip away, not if I wanted to be a storyteller.
Learning how to tell this story felt bigger than just warning others about the advancing city. Erhent had seen so much, and for some reason, a thread of my life had become woven with his. I wanted to understand why. I hoped I might be able to bring the threads together at Open Gates. Cara said we’d have nothing to fear at Open Gates—all kinds lived there, including soulkind. They’d have advice on the city in addition to a radio since it had once been a prison stronghold but had been reclaimed by over ten thousand residents. I’d never been around that many people. When I asked Erhent what it was like, he said it might feel like walking through a dense, thick forest.
Except Open Gates looked nothing like a forest. I had a lot of experience with forests, but the buildings spreading across the valley reminded me of a spider crouched at the heart of a web, waiting. At the top of the last hill, we shared a pair of binoculars. The valley bottom had the cleared look of a place long-poisoned. Most of the nomadic families avoided roads that led to these types of burned-open places in case the poison still lingered in the water or the soil.
I tucked the binoculars into Brother’s saddlebag. “Do you think it’s safe?”
Erhent crouched and dug his fingers into the frozen ground. After a few minutes, he said, “Yes and no. They’ve been working on removing the poison, but this place saw more than just pesticides.” He sighed. “This place is… wounded. Carrying pain.” He brushed off his hands.
“So, can Brother eat the grass?”
“I think so.”
The hill descended gently, so we both rode Brother toward the tree-line’s end. Towers edged the broken asphalt leading toward the buildings. A too-warm wind whipped through the valley, and no snow remained except in the shadow of tussocks. Winter’s brown made the flatlands feel abandoned and dead rather than just resting. Human-projects dotted the land, as did human-made homes for nonhumans. Dead trees piled together near some sort of compost system beside a series of empty trellises. Robins and cardinals darted into the compost and picked at it. Their pinpricks of red loosened my chest.
The first watch tower waited a few miles from where the outbuildings glinted in the weak sunlight. Underneath it, a cement pad supported the legs, and a few young people around my age gathered around the edge, playing some sort of game.
The road passed next to it, and I swung off Brother as we drew closer. The oldest-looking broke away from the crowd and met us at the roadside. They held what looked like a length of wood with wheels attached.
The tallest one waved. Sweat soaked their long shirt. “Hey, on your way to Open Gates?”
I returned the wave. “The Archivists told us about this place. We’re here to use your radio and visit your city.”
They leaned over slightly, propping on the nose of their board. “You’re totally welcome, of course, but the Archives have a radio, don’t they?”
Erhent dismounted. “Emissaries from Haven City destroyed it.”
They frowned. “What? Hold on, hold on.” They turned to the tower and yelled in another language, something that sounded like what the Harmonizers spoke, but not as precise.
A shadow scaled down the tower in long jumps before landing in a crouch.
Erhent stepped beside me but didn’t drag me behind him like last time. He clenched his twitching hands behind his back.
“I’m Chasim, any pronoun, and this is Sera, she-her.”
The soulkind jogged over. She looked less like the Harmonizers from the Archives and more like Erhent. My height, curvy, with pale skin still tan from the summer.
“We’re the welcome duo,” Sera said. “So we can give you the talk and tour, but it sounds like there’s trouble.”
Erhent dipped his head with the stiffness of dead reed. “I’m Erhent.” He braced.
Sera tilted her head. “Did you say…”
Erhent tried to smile, ending up more with a grimace, so I did it for him. “Yep! The Erhent.”
Chasim’s board slipped through their fingers and clattered on the asphalt. “Whoa. Uh, welcome.”
He waved them off. “We’re here because Haven City is expanding.”
Sera and Chasim exchanged glances. “First we’ve heard of it,” Chasim said.
“We need to prepare for refugees, then.” Sera slipped into the soulkind language, her words sounding like fingers ripping up grass.
Whatever she said helped relax Erhent. “This city doesn’t balance?”
Sera made a noise in the back of her throat. “Not in the old ways.” She crouched and pressed her hand to the frozen ground. “The work of this city is to pull the hurt and poison from this place. We’re only able to support ourselves with the help of all those living around us. Others bring us their surplus, and we give away what we have too much of. I forgot how hardy garlic mustard can be, even in this place.”
“Our premiere flavor,” Chasim said. He tossed his board onto the crumbling road and stepped on. “C’mon, I’ll take you to some of the organizers. They’ll know more about this trouble with Haven City.”
Despite the broken road, Chasim stayed on the board. They knew the path well enough to make his board jump over the worst sections or to step off, jog, then flip the board back under her feet. Erhent and I swung onto Brother to keep up.
In Uncle Miguel’s stories, the cities swooped into tall points, like metal and glass forests, but this city crept along the ground. The towers spiked the flatland, but some stood empty, their joints bending them closer to the ground. Wooden barriers warned away people and larger animals. The city inhabitants had tended other towers, and winter-browned vines turned the structures into shaggy shadows, but still, they felt watchful. Not the good watchful of a lone tree in a wide meadow.
The road cut through a fence still covered in summer’s viney leftovers. Chasim popped the board into his hands. “Wish you’d come in summer. Guests never feel as welcome in the winter. We keep this fence because someone long before us planted climbing flowers. It blooms each morning in the summer.” She walked beside us where the road turned to dirt and mud. “This place was a mega-prison and then a military stronghold, so it often feels—bad. Oppressive. Newcomers feel trapped or watched. It’s usually better once you’re at the heart of the city. More peaceful.”
I thought it was just the towers making me want to look over my shoulder, even with Erhent riding at my back. In the woods, I usually felt watched, but there was a difference between being watched by a mountain lion or coydog, between a squirrel or a badger. If a city could turn its gaze like this, how did anyone stand to live here?
Erhent touched my shoulder, and I started. “I feel it, too,” he said.
“Do they all feel this way?”
“Some. Not all.”
I’d felt this wariness, even unwantedness, in places stripped of life. Uncle Miguel once took me to a coal mine a few miles off our summer trails. The gaping hole, the scooped crater, had oozed this same spikiness.
Buildings clustered half a mile ahead, but other human structures spread into the fields. Lean-tos covered hay, and two does munched in the shadow. One raised her head as we passed, and Brother nickered. An earthen structure, the outside decorated with a mural of sunflowers, hunched deep in a flat, empty field. Smoke sputtered from the chimney. More homes clustered at the edges. A solar tractor pulled a wagon across a field while people shoveled compost off the back.
Even in the cold, more people dotted the space. Most paused to wave. Some called to Chasim by name.
“There’s about ten thousand humans and soulkind,” Chasim said. “And double that in more-than-humans.”
I gaped. “What?”
Erhent chuckled. “That’s less than a quarter of the size of Harmony.”
“But—how does it work? How can so many stick together?”
Chasim grinned. “We just take care of each other.”
“There’s smaller communities inside the city,” Erhent said. “Like parts of a body.”
“Or a forest,” Chasim said. “Any forest is much bigger than this city.”
My face felt hot. “I guess, when you say it like that.”
Erhent nudged my foot with his boot. “It is a lot of people.”
In a few minutes, those people became more and more visible, like seeing one or two wildflowers, then entering the meadow.
So many faces and voices and people doing, doing, doing. Many of the structures stood open, even in the cold, or had big, bright windows. A shop repaired carts and tools, the workers crossing next door to a blacksmith and welding station, where a burly person sharpened a spade. Carpenters offered building materials and decorative wood with intricate patterns burned into the grain—flowers, bees, lines of poetry, a big spread of crows. The carpenters’ designs decorated a bakery, which stocked bread on a table outside. People sat to eat and a cat waited for pads of butter. A tea cart rolled up, the driver parking at the bakery. Across the path, a library had e-readers to borrow displayed in the window and a list of current favorite stories pasted to the glass. A pack of dogs slept along the back wall of a steamy laundry. Two people unloaded winter squash from a truck bed, and a horse munched the packing straw. Woods, meadows, and mountains all carried their own smells, but I hadn’t experienced anything like the city, a weaving of savory, sweet, wet, smokey, charred.
