Broken Moon Read online

  I shake my head mutely at the small book. The cover is deep blue, embossed with gold letters: The Holy Bible: 1611 Edition. Lower down, smaller letters announce: King James Version. I turn its onionskin pages with awe, note that the spine is ribbed with identical gold.

  Searching methodically, I open the back cover, and then the front again, looking for some message from Papa: another scrap of paper, a scribbled note. Finding nothing, I flip through the pages more quickly, scanning. Still nothing. Enoch reaches his hand out wordlessly, and I hand over the tome.

  Eventually he too shakes his head, flummoxed. Like me, he refuses to believe this small book is just a gift. “Is … is the clue in the text?”

  I glance down at the tiny type and endless pages with a mounting despondency, unable to even guess how long it might take to read the whole thing. I have no answer, so I give none. Instead, I crawl over to the blankets, just enough energy left to lift them and crawl in beside Pip. I ignore my slight discomfort at being so near him and, clutching the book to my chest, fall instantly asleep.

  SIX

  The morning dawns cold and a little damp. I’m not sure which surprises me more: the fact that we went unmolested by the guards all night long, or that I slept so deeply despite the threat of arrest. I rise already fully dressed and, unable to stomach any more bread and cheese, chew on an apple.

  Pip is still hunched in the makeshift bed, his small form looking like no more than a wrinkle in the wool blankets. Enoch sits nearby, wincing slightly as he carefully rewraps his finger.

  “How is it?”

  “I’d be happier with some painkillers,” he says darkly. Then, taking a deep breath, he looks up and smiles. “It’s fine.”

  He looks exhausted, and I wonder how long he slept, if at all. I don’t remember him coming to bed. It’s possible he stood guard all night. But I keep my mouth shut; even if he did, he won’t admit it.

  “Have you eaten?” I say instead.

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” I sigh, “then I guess we should get going. It’s going to take us all day.” We both hear the end of the thought: If we get there. I stare moodily at the river, on which a slight mist has gathered. Here, under the shadow of Deck 2, it looks dark and forbidding. But just a few hundred feet to my left it trundles out into the open, sparkling in the early sunlight before disappearing into an enormous culvert beneath the Western Wall. Lovely houses adorn its banks, apartment buildings and shops dressed with twining green vines and cheerful signs. It’s so different from where we live, you almost wouldn’t know it was the same City. The same world.

  “I’m sorry,” says a small voice, breaking into my thoughts. Turning, I see Pip’s face peeking from beneath the covers. He is looking at Enoch. “About your hand.”

  “That’s all right, dude,” Enoch says, rising and going to sit by his brother. Reaching down, he picks up Pip’s right hand, his thumb brushing over the Mark on the back. “This isn’t your fault. It makes you do things, things you don’t want to do. But you need to fight it, okay?”

  Pip nods solemnly.

  “Okay.” Enoch smiles again, standing once more. He waits for Pip to get up and hands him his breakfast, then reaches down to fold the blankets and put them in his knapsack. His eyes are sad.

  We move a little more slowly that day. Though I can’t entirely shake the feeling of danger, I’m more relaxed. There are more places to hide on the outskirts, where gardens and parks grow lushly wherever higher levels don’t shade the ground. Nevertheless, we head inward toward the City’s heart. Unlike up above, people here avoid the dark centers; a mile or so in, there are so few inhabited houses and buildings we see almost no one for hours. The wealthy live almost entirely near the perimeter, under the open sky. Not only are the lower levels so much larger than those higher up, the population is much smaller. Where you would expect the tithe to create an abundance of people, their numbers seem to remain steady, and barely that. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they don’t have their own children at all. But that can’t be right.

  My thoughts drift slowly to the events of the previous day: the inscrutable Bible, its secrets buried so well it will take me hours just to figure out where to start; the slip of paper with its mocking scribble; the keycard with its seemingly meaningless code. The sequence of numbers and letters tugs at a corner of my memory, teasingly, like a face you once knew better than your own but have forgotten. My mother’s, for instance. The thought that Papa’s features might one day follow hers into obscurity is almost unbearable. I kick the ground, depressed.

  The dark mood matches our surroundings: tall, soaring pillars, the bright airmetal washed gray in the gloom. Even here, on the lowest level, light both artificial and sunny penetrates everywhere: creeping in from the edges by the wall, filtering down through cracks. It’s no darker than a night when the Broken Moon doesn’t rise, and we’re used to traveling this way. The floor is bare dirt, sometimes plated with cracked, potholed asphalt from ancient roads. Abandoned buildings, broken-down ruins. Places in which no one but us would be interested.

  I slow, my ears pricking. Up ahead there is a dim murmur of voices, accompanied by a lightening of the gloom. We’ve been angling northeast, staying deep beneath the shadow of Deck 2. Some quick mental calculations tell me we must be near the Common, one of the few places from before that’s actually been fully kept up. Its name has been changed, but the worn, red bricks, arranged to form a staggered amphitheater, are testament to its age. It’s odd, really, when the Nation wiped out so many other reminders of the past, so many other landmarks and maps, that it should allow its people to keep this remnant of the old world.

  “People need something to hold onto,” Papa once told me. I find myself agreeing more than ever.

  “We should go around,” Enoch says quietly.

  I move to give the bustling square a wide berth.

  “No,” Pip says, tugging my hand and looking up appealingly. “I want to see it.”

  My heart wrenches at the thought of denying him something so small. But the worst thing we can do right now is walk right into the middle of a populated area. Even if the Home Guard aren’t on our tails, there are sure to be several of them there. My throat constricts at the mere prospect.

  “Pip … ” Enoch starts, a razored edge to his voice.

  “Please?”

  “It’s not a good idea,” I say softly, wanting to explain. “We need to stay out of sight right now.”

  I try to move on, but Pip stalls, planting his feet and gripping my hand more tightly than I’d known he could. Feeling my pulse speed up, I pause. I weigh the danger of staying against that of pulling him away, risking his anger, a loud shout or a killing blow. It’s hard for me to believe he would do that, hard to admit even to myself that I’m afraid of him now.

  In the end, giving in seems like the smaller danger. Slowly we creep toward the plaza, drawing him down into the shadows twenty feet from its edge.

  Though I’ve seen it a dozen times, the sight of the uncovered Common never fails to take my breath away. It is large, edges stretching into the distance, filigreed with bright trees. Many are still green, but more of them flame with autumns’ colors: scarlet, bronze and gold. People move slowly about the space, laughing and talking, buying treats from small carts. But my eyes have no use for these sights, drawn inexorably up the slopes of innumerable decks ascending and receding on all sides. The illusion is that of a tiny valley in a great mountain range, the sky’s celestial blue veined with crisscrossing train tracks and a few zipping aircars.

  “Wow,” Pip whispers.

  “Happy?” I ask, searching the crowd for the silver-coated uniforms I dread. I don’t spot any, but it doesn’t make me feel better. “Let’s go.”

  “Just let him enjoy it for a minute,” says Enoch, who has apparently had a change of heart now that we’re this close. He places a placating hand, the good one, on my arm. He doesn’t seem to notice me tense, his face softening as he looks at Pip.
“Just for a minute.”

  I say nothing. In the middle of the square stands a lone City official, the badge of his office – a bronze octopus, the Party emblem – gleaming on his chest. He smiles at passersby, enjoying the sun, the light duty. Still no guards.

  “Oh, come on, Naiya.” He pats my arm once and withdraws his hand. I try not to notice; I notice anyway. “We’re no safer in the Cache than we are right here. Not really. Even you must be happy about a rest.”

  “Thrilled,” I retort. “Hugely excited.”

  He smiles, so I smile back, making an effort to relax my shoulders, breathe evenly. I itch to be moving, but he’s right: there is nowhere in this City a signal can hide, not even our dubious refuge. And Pip looks so happy, these new sights the only silver lining he’s likely to find. Papa, I sigh, thinking of how his green eyes crinkled as he looked down on me in this very square. Of the anticipation on his face as he handed me an ice cream cone – strawberry – a taste I’ll never forget, though it’s been years.

  “So many people!” Pip says.

  “Yes,” I agree. There are houses around the square, nudging its boundaries and jostling with shops and restaurants, trying to find space in the sunlight. “It’s always busy.”

  “But why aren’t they working?” Pip asks.

  “Because it’s Saturday. Down here, that’s not a workday.”

  “Oh.” He absorbs this, craning toward the unfamiliar sights. I put a restraining hand on his shoulder and gently pull him back. Entertainment is one thing. Unnecessary risk is another.

  Enoch shifts, looking down at his brother. “Ready, buddy? Time’s a-wasting.” Papa’s expression, it makes Pip smile. He climbs to his feet without argument, still gazing at the colors and light. “I wish we could live here.”

  “I know.” Enoch takes his hand, pulls the boy up with him. I’m rising too when a piercing voice cuts through the bustle. Whipping around, I take in the swath that has cleared around the source of the cry: a man, dressed too shabbily for these parts, in a tattered olive trench coat and a greasy derby cap. We sink down to the ground once more, watching.

  “You know it isn’t right!” the man is shouting, as alarmed citizens stumble back, clutching purses and satchels more tightly, pushing children behind them. Some of the younger kids tug adult hands and point, asking questions and looking for comfort. No one offers it to them; most of the square now stands stock-still, including the open-mouthed City official. Several people make half-hearted attempts to continue on, pretend they aren’t listening, but no one’s really fooled.

  “People disappear!” the man cries in a declarative voice, his words ringing clear, bouncing from the cold metal pillars and creating a slight echo as they blend and merge. “You know it, even down here. Say the wrong thing, think the wrong thought, and it’ll happen to you.” His hands sweep to take in everyone on the vast Common. I see the truth of his words reflected in a few eyes. “You know we aren’t safe. No one is, and no one knows why! You don’t, do you?” Piercing gaze after gaze. “You don’t know.”

  The official walks slowly toward the man, his arms held non-threateningly out to his side. He touches a finger to his earpiece slowly, almost experimentally, speaking a few cautious words before dropping his hand. I can’t tell if the ragged man has noticed any of this.

  “Well, I do,” the man says quietly. “I know.”

  The sound of blood is loud in my ears. I see Amy’s face in my mind.

  “Even after I was taken I didn’t believe it,” the man says, eyes sweeping the brick plaza to take in the fascinated citizens and newcomers alike. “Even then, I thought something must just have gone wrong, that I’d been sick, not myself.”

  At this point, the crowd has abandoned all pretense, leaning toward the scene, craning necks around other people, openly watching and waiting for the rest of this strange prophet’s words. A few people are edging out of shops for a better look; more faces crowd the windows. Why the guards haven’t come I can’t imagine. Perhaps they aren’t close enough, have been held up, aren’t interested. In the meantime, I lean forward with everybody else, eyes wide and heart hammering, even more eager than they to hear the rest of this suicidal tale.

  For this fool will surely die.

  “But I believe it now,” the man assures us all, looking around meaningfully. “Now I know that I’m not crazy, that my disappearance had a purpose. Do you know what it was? Do you?”

  If he hopes to get a murmur of encouragement, like some master of ceremonies at a late-night show, he is sadly mistaken. The square is deadly still.

  “I saw myself,” he says, quietly, for now he has no need to raise his voice. It carries perfectly well through the brick and metal and fear. He pulls his hand in front of his wide eyes, his open mouth, the sting of his breath. “This face, the face I’ve only ever seen in the mirror. I saw it on someone else. They made another one of me!”

  A painful silence answers him. Then someone in the crowd snorts disbelievingly, breaking the spell and sending the man into an almost unintelligible dance of rage, just as four Home Guard march officiously out into the crowd. Faces full of deadly menace, batons out, they surround the man immediately. Flailing, he hits one in the face, knocking him back momentarily.

  “I swear I saw myself!” he shrieks, going down under a flurry of sharp whaps from the batons. “I swear to you! I swear it! They’re here, they’re among us! It’s not a lie! You have to – ”

  And with that he stops talking for good. The guards retreat quickly, dragging their now-silenced burden with them and leaving only a small bloodstain.

  It’s not a lie. His voice echoes in my ears. His words clash bafflingly with those of the other Amy: It’s all a lie. Somehow, they both mean the same thing. I have no idea how many people out there believe this poor man’s ravings. I only know that I do.

  And then, the worst: one of the guards looks up, his nose in the air. He narrows his gleaming eyes slightly, then turns his face toward us with preternatural speed. His sockets look like points of fire, his hand like a claw as he touches it to the piece in his ear, mouthing words.

  “Go, go,” I urge Pip, trying to keep the panic from my voice. “Quietly. Go.”

  We creep backward, watching the guard as he waits for confirmation, still staring at us. Then he nods once, and begins to run.

  SEVEN

  I tear through dirt and rubble, legs pumping and lungs screaming. I have no idea where we’re going, but at this point it hardly matters, as long as it is away. The sound of the guard’s pursuit, so strong for the first minute, has faded somewhat, but possibly only because my breath has gotten loud enough to drown it out: even I can’t maintain a dead run for more than two or three minutes. If not for the speed and stamina that comes with his Mark, Pip would have gotten us caught long ago. As it is he keeps pace easily, hand held tightly in mine. He doesn’t even seem winded.

  Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop him from tripping and falling, practically tearing my arm from the socket in the process. I gasp, pulled up short. Looking behind me, I see no one, and for a moment I hope we lost the guard in the maze of ruined streets. Unlikely, though.

  Enoch wrenches Pip up from the ground and we keep going, but our stride is broken and I feel panic beginning to set in. I pray there is still only one guard, but the memory of him touching his earpiece is fresh in my mind. Wherever the rest of them are, they won’t be long.

  “Where?” I ask Enoch raggedly, stumbling along ancient avenues, darting around rusting automobiles that drove their last mile hundreds of years ago.

  He shakes his head. Keep moving, his hopeless face seems to say.

  Just then my eye falls on an old subway entrance, its mouth mostly obscured with fallen debris. “In there,” I gasp, nearly tossing Pip through the opening. I scramble in after, banging an elbow painfully on an old turnstile. Enoch follows in a mad dash, and I’m suddenly aware of how much noise we’re making. I hurriedly shush Pip, who is trying to say something, and s
train my ears for sounds of pursuit.

  I hear nothing, and I slowly become aware of how blind I am as well. The City floor is dark this far in, but our makeshift shelter is downright black. I can’t see either boy, but I feel shoulders on either side of me. That, at least, is a comfort.

  “Naiya,” Pip whispers urgently, his small fingers catching my wrist. “Naiya!”

  “Shh, what?”

  “I don’t feel him anymore. He’s gone.”

  A shiver runs up my spine, and I open my mouth to question Pip, but then I close it again. For I realize, suddenly, that I don’t need to ask. I know exactly what he means: I don’t feel him either.

  “Where is he?”

  Pip merely shrugs. “Not close,” is all he says.

  “Do you see them, Enoch?”

  “Hold on.” In the dark I hear him rustling quietly in the pocket of his jacket. He pulls out his power pack, flipping open the cover and pressing a few buttons. I shield it with my hand to prevent the light from giving us away, faint as it is. The faces beside me glow ice blue.

  “Huh,” he says after a moment. He shows me the screen, which has nothing on it. If there were guards nearby, their signals would register on the pack’s rudimentary map. I lean in for a closer look, and am suddenly arrested by cold fear, a thick prickle that begins at the base of my spine and slides up to the nape of my neck.

  “Pip, do you feel – ”

  He just nods. They’re back.

  Enoch closes the pack noiselessly and leaves us in darkness. No one needs to say what we’re all thinking: Don’t make a sound.

  We sit in silence, terrified, listening to muffled orders, to responses from the guards who joined the first. The search seems to go on for a long time, sometimes closer and sometimes further away. For a whole five minutes the voices and the prickle disappear entirely, and when they return once more, the fear is mixed with crushing disappointment. My chances of completing what feels like Papa’s last assignment are slipping away.