I stole down a street, hugging the unsheltered curb, feeling more and more like I shouldn’t be here and how I couldn’t wait to be home. A mechanical creaking stopped me in my tracks. It sounded like a giant door pulling open, then glass shattering and muffled voices. I froze. There were very few places to hide. I padded into the front lawn of one of the houses and tried to mold into the shape of the Pau Brasil tree, noticing the lined-up bins on the curb in front of every house. What day was it? Wednesday. Bin collection.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath.
It was getting closer, inching its way towards me. I watched as a giant, mechanical arm lifted bins to the opening and shook. A man followed the truck, picking up the different recyclables and emptying them into compartments in the base of the truck, below the mouth meant for garbage. I’d never seen it done before. It was so early, 3AM. What an awful, bottom-of-the-rung job.
A man sidled up to the boxes, picked them up awkwardly, and bouncily walked to the truck, whistling as he went. The driver stuck his head out the window and yelled at the man intermittently, or maybe it was a boy. He was short and thin. He moved like he wasn’t collecting garbage. This boy was taking a stroll through a flowered field, sweeping his hands across the blooms, and looking up at the sky. It was clear he wasn’t taking what he was doing very seriously. The man in the truck yelled at him over and over, his hairy arm gesticulating and banging the door. But the boy seemed unperturbed, walking out of sight, snapping his hand together like a talking mouth, wobbling his head and imitating the driver. I tried not to laugh, covering my mouth with my hand. The tears were drying up now.
The truck was one house away and I prayed the headlights would not cast their light on me. My feet were quite obviously sticking out from the thin trunk. I cursed the ineptitude of the tree for being such a poor shelter. My feet were in sneakers; they would know I wasn’t from here. My eyes, my clothes, they would know straight away.
The truck lurched forward, squeaking to a stop at the house I was standing in front of. The headlights illuminated the front door. I knew they would see me. I held my breath and stood on the tips of my toes, trying to press myself further into the bushy foliage and pathetically thin trunk. I should have run. I’d had time. But the boy loading garbage had distracted me and now it was too late.
Metal clashed, glass clinked against glass, and the truck moved. The headlights weren’t shining on me anymore. But the boy was still there, picking up some loose bottles that had spilled out of an overloaded box.
“Make sure you get everything, boy,” the driver growled impatiently as he rolled to the next house.
“Yeah, yeah,” the boy replied, shaking his head.
I looked down at my feet to see a green glass bottle had rolled under my tree.
The boy picked his way up the path, collecting bottles and sticking them under his arm. I moved around the tree, trying to stay out of sight. Thinking, This is it… I’ll be caught and it will be for nothing.
He got to the front door and turned around. I held my breath. A few more steps and I would be safe. Keep moving, I willed. Don’t look under the tree.
He was just off the path when he stopped suddenly, like a thought had occurred to him. He turned around and marched straight towards my hiding place. He leaned down and scooped up the bottle at my feet. He stopped way too long, staring at the dirt. No, he was staring at my shoes. My lungs burned for air.
I relaxed. Gave up. I inhaled deeply. There was no way I could escape this. The boy would call the man in the truck, who would alert the neighbors. I would be up on the center podium tomorrow and my mother would have to watch as they cut my heart out, slit my throat, or did whatever horrible punishment traitors received.
I let out a sigh and closed my eyes, fists clenched, thinking maybe I could punch him, do some damage before I was dragged off.
My thoughts went to Joseph. I was so selfish for wanting to come here. My heart clenched and jolted. I would never see him again. I would never see my son again.
“Soar?” I opened my eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?” A sharp whisper emitted from a dark shadow of a face. I knew that voice.
I peered into it, trying to pick out the features, dark brows, dark eyes, my height. Then he smiled.
“Rash.”
The word escaped my lips like a soft wind.
I gripped both his hands with my own, hard, feeling his skin, his pulse, making sure he was real. They were the same as always, rough, cool. My mouth moved quicker than my brain and the words tipped out of me like a barrowful of dirt.
“Yes, it’s me. Look, we don’t have much time but I’ve come from the outside. There’s a settlement. If you want to come with me, I’ll take you. It’s so much better there. You can be free, safe,” I blurted out in one breath.
Rash watched me, absorbing my words, absorbing me. He looked the same but there was a new sadness behind his twinkling eyes. I wondered how he had ended up here, collecting garbage.
He smiled broadly and that smidge of sadness disappeared like a mirage. He squeezed my hands back fully, the complete action of a friend, a brother who had never let me go. I felt a stitch being sewn, my heart pulling itself back together. “I can’t go. I have a promising career sorting through other people’s garbage for the rest of my life,” he said with a wink. He pulled my ear close to his mouth and whispered, “Let’s get outta here.”
I shivered from the warmth of his breath and smiled.
The driver of the truck was now really worked up, thumping the side of the truck in a temper. “You hopeless good for nothing idiot. Get over here before I chuck you in the compactor.”
“With charming coworkers like that guy, why would I even think of leaving this dream job?” he whispered, and my heart swelled. “Coming!” he shouted to the driver.
He tried to move but I jerked him back. I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t believe he was standing in front of me.
“I’ll need those back,” he said warmly, his eyes resting on our joined hands.
I nodded and released him, feeling instant pain at the separation. I whispered, “Meet me at the gate for Ring Eight at 3:45 AM. Can you get away?” I asked.
“Hey, for the ghost of Construction Class, anything!” Rash said and he sidled away casually, without looking back.
He may have been useless as a laborer but he could act. He slipped naturally back into his garbage-collector role like nothing had happened. And like that, an old ache eased. It lifted and left a tiny, white scar behind as a reminder, but one of my ghosts was freed.
I stood there, waiting for the lights of the truck to recede into the distance. Filled with new energy, I weaved through the shadows like I was air and light. Rash, I found Rash. How he was here, I couldn’t fathom but I’d found him—he was coming with me. I would let this good news cradle me against the grief that was threatening to destroy me, the grief of losing my mother, twice.
I stole my way through the gates without incident, noticing for the first time how empty the streets were. Even on a quiet night there were usually a few police patrols strutting down the pavement, talking loudly and being generally obnoxious. Where was everybody? My feelings of joy at finding my friend were coated in a sap of suspicion. Dust swirled up my nose as a vague breeze swept across the ground. The air never moved very far in here.
I hoped the Spider Careen retrieved would have some answers for us. I prayed her rescue had gone smoother than my own.
Ring Eight—the end of the line in so many ways. It was the end of Pau Brasil; it was the end of life for its inhabitants. For me, it was the end of Woodlands. I would never come back here.