“We could get more food, too,” Eli says. Then he frowns. “But that light—”
“We’ll be careful,” Indie says. “It has to be better than trying to cross to the mountains right now.”
“What do you think?” Ky asks me.
I remember that day back in Oria at the Restoration site, and how the workers gutted the books and the pages fell out. And I imagine the papers lifting, flying, winging their way for miles until they settled somewhere safe and hidden. Another thought darts into my mind: there might even be information about the Rising among the things the farmers saved. “I want to see all the words,” I tell Ky, and he nods.
At night, Ky and Eli show us a place to camp that Indie and I did not notice on our way out of the Carving. It’s a cave, spacious and large once you’re inside; and when Ky shines his flashlight around it I catch my breath. It’s painted.
I’ve never seen pictures like this — they’re real, not on a port or printed out on a scrap of paper. So much color. So much scale — the paintings cover the walls, wash up on the ceiling. I turn to Ky. “How?” I ask him.
“The farmers must have done it,” he says. “They knew how to make their own supplies with plants and minerals.”
“Are there more?” I ask.
“Many of the houses back in the township are painted,” he says.
“What about these?” Indie asks. She points to another set of art farther along the cave wall — carved pictures showing wild, primitive figures in motion.
“Those are older,” Ky says. “But the theme is the same.”
He’s right. The farmers’ work is less crude, more refined: a whole wall of girls in beautiful dresses and men with colorful shirts and bare feet. But the motions of the people seem to echo those of the earlier etchings.
“Oh,” I whisper. “Do you think they painted a Match Banquet?” As soon as I’ve said it, I feel stupid. They don’t have Match Banquets here.
But Indie doesn’t laugh at me. Her expression as she runs her fingers over the walls and along the pictures is a complex one, longing and anger and hope all together in her eyes.
“What are they doing?” I ask Ky. “Both of the sets of figures are. . moving.” One of the girls has her hands lifted over her head. I put mine up, too, trying to figure out what she is doing.
Ky watches me with that look in his eyes, the one sad and full of love at the same time, the one he gives me when he knows something I don’t, something he thinks has been stolen from me.
“They’re dancing,” he says.
“What?” I ask.
“I’ll show you sometime,” he says, and his voice, tender and deep, sends a shiver through me.
CHAPTER 25
KY
My mother could dance and sing and she went out to watch the sunset every night. “They didn’t have sunsets like these in the main Provinces,” she’d say. She always found the one good part of everything and then turned her face toward it every chance she had.
She believed in my father and went to his meetings. He walked out with her in the desert after the storms and kept her company while she found hollows filled with rain and painted with water. He wanted to make things — changes — that would last. She always understood that what she did would fade away.
When I see Cassia dancing without knowing she’s doing it — turning and turning in delight as she looks at the paintings and carvings in the cave — I understand why my parents both believed as they did.
It’s beautiful and it’s real, but our time together could be as fleeting as snow on the plateau. We can either try to change everything or just make the most of whatever time we have.
CHAPTER 26
CASSIA
Ky leaves one flashlight on so that we can see each other while we talk. When Eli and Indie fall asleep, and Ky and I are the only two left, he switches off the light to save it. The girls on the cave walls dance back into darkness and we are truly alone.
The air in the cave feels heavy between us.
“One night,” Ky says. In his voice, I hear the Hill. I hear the wind on the Hill, and the brush of branches against our sleeves, and the way he sounded when he first told me he loved me. We have stolen time from the Society before. We can do it again. It will not be as much as we want.
I close my eyes and wait.
But he doesn’t go on. “Come with me outside,” he says, and I feel his hand on mine. “We won’t go far.” I can’t see him; but I hear a complicated mix of emotion in his voice and feel it in the way he touches me. Love, concern, and something unusual, something bittersweet.
Outside, Ky and I walk down the path a little way. I lean back against the rock and he stands before me, reaching up to put his hand along my neck, under my hair and the collar of my coat. His hand feels rough, cut from carving and climbing, but his touch is gentle and warm. The night wind sings through the canyon and Ky’s body shields me from the cold.
“One night. .” I prompt him again. “What’s the rest of the story?”
“It wasn’t a story,” Ky says softly. “I was about to ask you something.”
“What?” The two of us draw together under the sky, our breath white and our voices hushed.
“One night,” Ky says, “doesn’t seem like too much to ask.”
I don’t speak. He moves closer and I feel his cheek against mine and breathe in the scent of sage and pine, of old dust and fresh water and of him.
“For one night, can we just think of each other? Not the Society or the Rising or even our families?”
“No,” I say.
“No what?” He tangles one of his hands in my hair, the other draws me closer still.
“No, I don’t think we can,” I say. “And no, it isn’t too much to ask.”
CHAPTER 27
KY
I never named anything I’ve written before
no reason to
since
it would all have the same title anyway
— for you—
but I would call this one
one night
CHAPTER 28
CASSIA
When the sun comes into the Carving, we are already on the move again. The path is so narrow that we usually have to walk single file, but Ky stays near me, his hand on the small of my back, our fingers brushing and clinging every chance we get.
We have never had such a thing before — a whole night to talk, to kiss and hold on — and the thought and we never will again keeps coming back to me, will not stay buried where it should, even in the beautiful light of the Carving morning.
When the others woke, Ky told us what he thought our plan should be: get back to the township by evenfall and try to slip into one of the houses farthest from where he saw the light. Then we’ll keep watch. If there’s still only one light, we can try to approach in the morning. There are four of us and, Ky thinks, only one or two of them.
Of course, Eli is so young.