But Alpha had believed in me. And I took that faith and it helped grow me stronger, and I had to be stronger now than I ever had been. Because I knew what I was going to do. I had to finish what Pop started. And that meant I was going to need Alpha on the inside.
For the uprising.
Zee told me that before the Darkness, the white trees had grown all over the west and all across what was now the Rift. They were called Populus, back in the old world. Populus tremuloides. But they were also called Quaking Aspen, because back then there were enough trees around that people gave them two names apiece.
The apple tree, though, was of a kind rare even before the Darkness. It grew in mountains in far off places. Malus sieversii. A type of wild apple that had grown for a long time unaltered, before people knew how to mess with such things.
But here on Promise Island, here on this frozen lump of trash, the trees didn’t need naming. They were just all that was left. And that night, after Zee had made the agents retrieve Crow and get him conscious, I carried what was left of the watcher to see what was left of the trees.
It was not a clear night, and it seemed somehow colder for the lack of moon, the absence of stars. I had Crow wrapped in blankets, and I’d tugged the blankets over my shoulder, then tied them around my waist. I was starting to get my strength back and made it up the hill slow but without stopping. Top of the ridge and it was too dark to see the branches below.
“Hold on,” I said over my shoulder. “Not long now.”
What had been snow was now ice and I slipped and skidded down the slope until we were all the way to the bottom. At the edge of the forest, I unwound the blankets and set Crow down, holding him upright and pulling off his hood.
Our breath steamed in the darkness.
“Closer,” Crow mumbled, and I walked him nearer. “Lean me against it,” he said, and I balanced him so he could hold himself tall with the trees in his hands.
“You want to go in deeper?” I asked him.
“Not yet.”
I dug up some of the old leaves and showed them to him, but Crow just stayed staring at the bark between his fingers. It was so dark I could hardly tell, but I was pretty sure Crow was crying.
“I’m ready,” he said finally, and I lifted him and carried him before me as I made my way slowly through the forest.
At the center clearing, I took a break and we sat there, surrounded by the empty hole in the trees.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Banyan,” Crow said, and his voice had changed now so that it no longer sounded as if he was about to start laughing. More it sounded like he wasn’t ever going to laugh again.
“What do you think of them?” I asked.
“I think they’re Zion,” he said. “I think they’re worth living a life for. And I think if you hadn’t dragged me out of that wagon, then I wouldn’t be here now.”
“I think we can save them” was all I said.
“No. They don’t need us to save them.”
“Yeah they do. The trees need us. And the people need us even more. Else GenTech’s gonna kill a whole lot of people so they can own a whole lot of trees.”
“They been killing people and owning everything since the Darkness. Probably a long time before that, too. Nothing going to change.”
“There are more of us than them.”
“Us? Didn’t you say it’s your own mother that’s running this show?”
“She ain’t my mother. She ain’t nothing. We just have to bust the prisoners free. And we can take them.” I pointed at the trees. “Not these. New ones they’re building. We get our hands on those and we take the boat. Head down to the mainland.”
“The mainland? You mean the Rift.” Crow shook his head slowly. “I seen those lava fields from the south side.”
“We got taken up here, must be a way back down.”
“So we find a way through the lava and somehow get back there. What about the locusts? I always believed these trees would be different, but it’s just that they’re stuck out here, away from the swarms.”
“These new ones they’re making are different. GenTech’s got them built so the locusts can’t touch them, not for eating or nesting or nothing at all. Mixed up people and trees and scienced the hell out of them. That’s why they’ve been rounding up so many prisoners. So they can build these new trees and send a whole crop back for planting.”
“We may got the numbers,” Crow said, when he was done being silent. “But they got those prisoners doped up and sleeping.”
“Yeah. Dormancy’s what Zee called it. Some sort of preparation they do. They’re all right for about forty more hours. Then the splicing begins.”
“So what do you want to do?” Crow said, his eyes staring through the night like they were digging for something.
“I want to wake everyone up.”
Crow did laugh then. And his laugh sounded just the same as it used to. “Wake everyone up?”
“Just got to work the angles, that’s all. Like you said, I’m connected here. That woman. The Creator. I can get her wrapped around my finger, I play my cards out right.”
“And what about your father?”
“He’s here,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Somewhere. We’ll bust him out, too.”
“You want it all.”
“They’re making apple trees, Crow.”
“Apples?”
“Imagine bringing one of them back to Waterfall City.”
“The Prodigal Son,” Crow said quietly. “Returns to the Promised Land just to thieve it all away. Well, just like I always told you, Banyan. You’re one crazy cool son of a bitch. Jah as my witness, you are crazy cool.”
I’d gotten us back inside before we froze to death, and I set Crow up to rest in his room. Then I returned to the small room I’d first come awake in, making my way through the cluttered lab and the darkness, pushing inside the door, then clicking it shut behind me.
I lay on the bed, wrapped myself in the soft blankets. And it wasn’t long before I was out cold and sleeping. But not much longer and the Creator was there, too.
Just as I’d figured.
She had her hand on my head, rubbing my stubbly scalp, and I let her think I was still sleeping, sort of snuggling my head at her fingers and making drowsy little sounds.
Eventually though, I cracked my eyes open and upon seeing her I stretched back, scooted over in the bed, and turned away as she sat down beside me.
“I’ve missed you so much,” the woman whispered to the top of my head, her voice all scratched and skipping beats. I shook my head like I was keeping her words from touching me.
“You never came for me.”
“I tried, Banyan. GenTech wouldn’t let me. They didn’t want me distracted.” She lost her words for a moment. “And when I tried to stop working, to leave here, they told me you and your father had been killed.”
“It don’t sit right,” I told her. “I don’t remember nothing. I can’t even remember you holding me.”
Her body tensed beside me. And I knew I was in.
“That’s because you were so small,” she said. “When your father took you.”
“So you never knew me.”
“I used to imagine you here. I used to picture you growing up. I’d think of books we could have read together.”
“Pop read to me all the time,” I said.
“Really?” There was a hunger in her voice. I felt her bony arm try to wrap around me.
“Yeah. Lewis and Clark.”
“He always loved to read about the explorers. Well, I should be glad you two had something to read. They haven’t let me have books up here for five years. Kills productivity, they say.”