City of Savages Read online

  My mother, saint she is, gives Trevor a huge smile like always. Then she begins stroking Phee’s hair. “She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?”

  I feel something small and jagged in my throat, but I nod along with them.

  “I’ve known it forever. Since she was a kid—”

  “Trev, you’re younger than I am.” Phee rolls her eyes, and mouths to me, Help.

  “I even bet rations on you with Old Lady Warbler,” Trevor barrels on. “Two full days of meals. This is the first course of many tonight.” He beams as he shoves his stew under Phee’s nose. He then looks into the fire in sudden realization. “Man, I hope I don’t kill the woman.”

  “Mrs. Warbler’s been through worse.” Mom laughs and keeps playing with Phee’s hair. “And she’s still as strong as an ox. I think it’s safe to collect on that bet.”

  * * *

  I slowly drift away from the fire as Mom helps Trevor recount Phee’s street-fight scene by scene. It’s not that I want to be jealous. That I want to act like a shadow while my sister shines. But I don’t know how to turn these feelings off sometimes. My smile starts to feel hollow, my heart races, and I wonder if people can see right through me, can see how different I am inside. That I’m not hammered out of steel, like Phee is. That I’m not made for this city—while my sister is practically its prodigy.

  I wander over to the trees as the music’s tempo picks up and the cheers through the Park become deafening. I stop short of the forest line, just in case any raiders or feeders are lurking out there, waiting to pick at scraps—or lingerers—from the festival. But I’m sure I’m safe. A holdout hasn’t tried to poach the Park since we were kids.

  As always when I’m feeling tense and unsettled, I let my mind wander, let my thoughts chain together and drag me to a better place. I think of the past and how much I don’t know about Mom and this city. I picture Mom writing her secrets in that small, tattered blue book, which now belongs to me, and soon, tonight even, I’ll read and share those secrets. Maybe if I know what’s come before, I can take comfort in where I am, and why I’m here, instead of wishing with every fiber of my being to be anywhere else.

  I hear a sharp crack of a branch coming from deep in the forest, and panic jolts me. I’m being reckless, have stumbled too close to the woods. But before I can turn to rejoin my family, a swift flash of green darts from tree to tree. It moves again, this emerald lightning bolt, and my heart starts jumping around like a fish in bare hands. Is it an animal? A person? What kind of person?

  I try to remember Mom’s warnings about the tunnel feeders. Don’t panic. Back up slowly. Then run like hell. And about the raiders. Empty your pockets. Put down your weapons. Then curl into a ball of submission.

  But what if you don’t know what kind of holdout you’re dealing with?

  I start shuffling backward, when the green form stops in between the trees, just for a second. It’s a man, a young man, his face covered with mud, leaves in his hair like camouflage, the pupils of his eyes so white against his dirty face, they glow like a pair of moons. He meets my gaze.

  I give a short, startled gasp. I know the faces of all the male prisoners in the Park—the fieldworkers, the lords. There aren’t many of them. And I’m positive I’ve never seen this one. My mind starts swimming, a realization crashing over me—was this the stranger outside the crowds, during the street-fights?

  But before I can think through it, he’s gone.

  I take a step closer to where this disappearing woodsman was, sprint back and forth a bit between the trees to try to find him. But the woods are unassuming, the trees stoic. We saw nothing, they seem to whisper. You’re conjuring ghosts.

  Am I really starting to see things? My imagination has gotten the better of me before. But not like this . . . and not twice.

  I take a deep breath and quickly scout once more around the wide, knotty oak where I saw him.

  Nothing. No footprints, no markings, no proof.

  * * *

  I don’t say anything about what I think I saw to Mom, Phee, or Trevor once I get back to the fire, or during the walk home after the festival. I try to stop dwelling on it, try to convince myself that it was the firelight bouncing off the underpass, and the moonlight hitting the trees, creating shadows. And by the time we ride the wave of the crowd through the Carlyle lobby and up the grand marble stairs, I’ve managed to quiet my mind.

  As soon as we’re back in the room, Mom’s first in the bathroom to redo her ankle splint, so Phee and I fall down on our fluffy bed with its soft, sinking middle. Phee flops her arm over my stomach, and I laugh and push her away. We smell of blood, air, and earth, but it’s comforting instead of gross. We’re warm and alive. And together. I breathe deeply, think only of what I have to be thankful for, just try to focus on this moment.

  Mom pokes her head into the bedroom and sees us lying on our mattress. “Up,” she says.

  “I’m never moving again,” Phee murmurs into her pillow. “I just saved our butts for the winter. That’s like a lifetime of free passes.”

  I laugh and nudge her gently. “Come on. You know she won’t stop hassling us until we do what she says.”

  Phee groans and finally gets up to let Mom help her change her wound dressings. And now that Mom’s occupied, I burrow under the bed to dislodge her journal from my backpack. It’s still covered with the tattered Charlotte’s Web book jacket, so I prop myself up against the dirty silk headboard, making sure it’s impossible to see the handwritten pages from any other angle. It’s dangerous, I know, to jump right into reading this in plain view, but I’ve been impatient to get back to it since dinner. I’ve wanted—no, needed—more about my mother my whole life, and now her journal from the old world rests in my palms, ready to share.

  February 15—So it’s official. Tom decided to leave Robert Mulaney’s studio, to work for his dad and Mary at the firm. I feel like I’ve gutted a bit of his soul—I know how much he loves working with Robert. I loved the two of them working together too—at least some of our old NYU crowd was getting to pursue their dreams. But we need the money, and even though we’ve debated the pros and cons since Sky was born six months ago, we both knew, all along, that this was the only long-term solution.

  Tom starts as an admin on Monday. He says he’s fine with it, but I know he’s lying. We dance around each other these days.

  I really, really hope he and Mary don’t kill each other.

  February 28—I’ve been feeling crappy recently, tired and stretched thin. It’s just me at home, and there’s been no break from Sky. There’s been no break at all.

  I feel a pang of guilt but keep reading.

  Plus, Tom’s been getting back to the apartment and making a big stink each night, like he’s the only one put out by our new arrangement. Mary apparently takes every chance she gets to remind him that he’s crawled back to his family. How he’s low man on the Miller totem pole. How he failed as an artist. Blah, blah, blah.

  I try to be empathetic, but I’m so tired by the time he gets home that I’m resentful that he thinks he has the right to complain. He gets to talk to adults! Put on fresh underwear! Order out for lunch! While I’ve essentially kissed good-bye any hope of actually starting my novel. The days keep flying by in a whirl of feedings and diapers.

  And between you and me, most times I think he’s lying, that he’s just dressing up his own insecurities. I’ve never really seen that side of Mary. Tough-as-nails negotiator, yes. Spitfire CEO-in-training, sure. But vindictive? Belittling? Impossible?

  Tom’s a drama queen.

  March 3—I hate the subways. Really. We’ve been sitting here for the past hour, and the conductor hasn’t even bothered to let us know when we’ll be moving. MTA, aka Majorly Thoughtless Assholes.

  Mary’s been holding Sky and is somehow keeping her quiet. Whispering these cute little stories about all of Mary’s favo
rite animals, the shy giraffe and the noble polar bear and whatever else keeps Sky giggling and gurgling in the corner.

  She’s so good with her. It makes me feel sad, and guilty, that Mary will never have any of her own. And the sadness is uncomfortable, sits like another passenger squeezed between us. On New Year’s Eve, after we put Sky to sleep and were way too drunk on Tom’s Manhattans and Jim had passed out on our couch, Mary admitted that she’d had a fourth miscarriage. Since then, she’s stopped talking about her and Jim trying, and I’ve stopped asking.

  Anyway, we’re on our way to the zoo now, where Mary’s going to give us her special “zoo volunteer” behind-the-scenes tour—she even bought Sky a stuffed monkey. We’re giving Tom a Daddy Day Off to work on some big installation with Robert up at the studio. I know how much he misses it.

  March 3, later—Still haven’t moved, and it’s been at least two hours.

  “Hey!” Phee says as she emerges from the soft firelight of the bathroom. I instinctively shut the book. She looks far better than she did a few moments ago. Her bandages are changed, and her face is clean. She looks nervously at Mom and then shoots me the stink eye. “I thought . . . I thought we were reading Charlotte together.”

  “We are,” I tell her calmly, my eyes wide to telepath, Please don’t blow it. Please don’t go all Phee on me about this. “You can catch up later.”

  “But,” she fishes, “it’s not the same as reading it together. Wait for me next time.”

  And I can tell she’s really hurt that I’d even think of moving forward without her. I shake my head. Sometimes Phee still surprises me, even though I know her better than I know myself. “I will. I’m sorry.”

  “Your sister usually has to twist your arm to get you to open a book,” Mom says to Phee, then laughs as she waves me into the bathroom to get ready. “Guess you’re making progress, Skyler.”

  As Phee and I swap places, I whisper, “Stop at the subway.”

  * * *

  Once Mom is asleep, Phee and I sit together in the large marble tub in the bathroom, where the firelight is brightest. We waited until we could hear Mom’s trademark wheeze of a snore, and then I pinched Phee’s arm, as we’d agreed, and we snuck into the bathroom together. I don’t know about Phee, but I’m planning on staying up until I finish the whole journal. I want Mom’s words, her old life, to wash over me like one big wave.

  “This tub is uncomfortable,” Phee whispers.

  “Well, the light over there is terrible,” I say. “Did you get to the part where Mom and Mary are taking me to the zoo, and they’re stuck on the subway?”

  “And Dad’s out making art or something with his friend?”

  I nod and open the book again. The firelight dances across the crinkled pages, and we jump back into Mom’s world of long ago.

  March 3, later—Still haven’t moved, and it’s been at least two hours. My claustrophobia started to kick in about thirty minutes ago, so Mary, Sky, and I moved to an empty bench in the corner. “Just breathe,” Mary keeps telling me. “Someone will open the doors soon.”

  Sky’s been asleep against Mary’s chest, rising and falling with her breath, like she’s on a life raft. Where’s my life raft?

  There aren’t many people in our car, maybe ten—a few Spandex-clad cyclists. A homeless guy wrapped in trash. A willowy teen with a cover-girl face, who could plunge even the securest of women back into the mires of high school insecurity.

  But it feels like there’s not enough room for all of us. Like we’re all expanding, stretching, hoarding air into our mouths and bags and purses.

  “No one’s stealing your air,” Mary said. “Just breathe.”

  Mary rarely humors me, and I kind of count on her not to.

  March 3, later—We heard muffled, empty assurances from the train conductor, garbled through the speakers.

  Silence.

  And then darkness.

  Sky started to cry and pass out intermittently, so Mary and I took turns dozing off against each other. While Mary was sleeping, I found her lighter (I knew she hadn’t quit). I managed to locate my nursing cover at the bottom of my bag, and draped it around myself to feed Sky for a little.

  Ideas have been thrown around of prying the doors open, or breaking the windows if no one opens the emergency exit soon. The man dressed in trash bags suggested pooling our brainpower and using mind control, while the teenager, Bronwyn, played with her hair and told us just to call MTA.

  But no one’s doing anything. We’re just talking in circles, providing ourselves with a quiet soundtrack.

  March 3, later—I swore we were going to die.

  “We’re not going to die.” Mary rolled her eyes. “Please.”

  But she grabbed my hand anyway, and my heart slowed down just a bit.

  It’s funny how different she and Tom are. Tom’s such an artist, frazzled, impetuous. His sister’s always been the steady one. And even though I wished so desperately that Tom was with us, holding my hand, Mary’s the one who knew what to do and say to calm me down.

  “Mom’s never mentioned this Mary chick, has she?” Phee sits up and asks.

  “Never.”

  “And she’s Tom’s—I mean Dad’s—sister. So she’s Mom’s sister-in-law.”

  “Right . . . but this journal was written before the war started,” I think out loud. I fan the pages quickly. “There’s no mention of soldiers, Dad’s family firm was up and running, Mom was taking me to the zoo. Mary probably died during the attacks, and so Mom doesn’t talk about her.”

  I think about all the people, like Mary, who didn’t survive the attacks. All of Mom’s ghosts, and how many there must be. Ghosts who haunt her thoughts, who leave her screaming in the night. And for the first time, I sort of understand Mom’s mantra, maybe even sympathize. Sometimes the past should stay in the past.

  “Don’t you still think that’s weird?” Phee asks. “For Mom to never mention Mary, even if she died?”

  “You know Mom. She doesn’t talk about anything. It took her over a decade to bring us to our old apartment.”

  “True. Okay, wait, hold on a second,” Phee grunts. “My butt is killing me. This tub’s as hard as cement.”

  She shifts her legs up and over me and almost kicks me in the eye. After some finagling, we end up with our knees hanging over the side of the empty bathtub, our heads propped up by towels on the tiled border, like we’re sunning ourselves under the torchlight.

  “All right, I’m ready,” Phee says, and I crack open the spine to continue.

  March 6—It’s been days. I haven’t been able to stop to write down what’s happened until now.

  Suffice it to say, no one came to save us. So we had to save ourselves.

  Mary somehow shaped Sky’s stroller into a weapon, and the three men dressed in cycling gear helped her stab the glass and gut the windows of the train. Each one of us carefully crawled out of the belly of the beast, and then we worked on rescuing the other cars. If I didn’t have Sky, I might even have laughed, been excited by the bizarre Saturday adventure.

  “You ruin everything,” Phee teases.

  “Would you be quiet? I’m trying to get into this.”

  But my nerves were so fried all I could think of was getting home.

  Once everyone was out, we reconfigured the stroller and rolled Sky down the tunnel with the rest of our ragtag crew. It was so black that the dark had texture. The dull blue light from people’s phones did little to light the way, and hardly anyone had a lighter. Now that New York is smoke free, smokers are rare commodities, I suppose. It was just Mary and the lithe teen, Bronwyn, along with every member of a group of sixty-year-old women from Kansas, visiting for a girls’ luxury weekend away.

  The women with lighters leading the charge, we all walked carefully on the tracks to the next subway stop, a group of about fifty of us. Mary
announced at some point that we were between 33rd Street and Grand Central. It was clear from both her lighter and her stroller-weapon move that she was somehow leading our pitiful brigade. She said the power must be out, that it might be the whole city. And that once we got to Grand Central, we’d know what was going on.

  We hear a moan from the bedroom. And then a startled gasp.

  “She’s up,” Phee whispers. “Ditch it.”

  I close the book and shove it in between Phee and me as Mom frantically opens the door.

  “What are you two doing?”

  Shadows carve out Mom’s eyes and cheeks, and she looks ancient under the torchlight. I can tell she’s half-asleep. For a second I consider coming clean and telling her that we have her book, that we stole her past, and let her wake up tomorrow and write it off as a dream.

  “Just talking,” I say.

  “Tomorrow’s our first day in the fields,” Mom mumbles, visibly more relaxed now that she’s found us safe and sound. “You both need to rest. We’ve got a big day ahead of us. Come on, out of the tub.”

  We begin to climb out as she limps back to the room.

  “When do we finish?” Phee whispers.

  “Tomorrow.” I think of this morning, how it feels as if we’ve lived lifetimes since then, and I realize I’m excited for a new day. Even if it means we have to wait. “Hey, Phee?”

  “Yeah?”

  I put my arm on her shoulder and help guide her into the dark. “Happy birthday.”

  We stumble back into the room and I return the journal to the folds of my backpack, then push the bag to the center of the floor under our bed.

  I climb in next to Phee and drift in and out of sleep. I dream of dark tunnels. Heroes fighting by firelight. And lonely, beautiful woodsmen.