Oculum Read online

  “What’s his problem, do you suppose?” Cranker says. I shrug.

  “Maybe he wants something?”

  Cranker looks up at the sky. The sun is going down. “Hey, the dome is closing!”

  He’s right. We both stand and watch as the dome lid starts to close. It seems faster closing than when it opened a few nights ago. I want to watch it close, but the dog pops his head up, a little farther this time, and barks again, wags his tail down low, then disappears.

  “I’m going to follow him,” I say.

  “We got one more day before we’s supposed to go back to Grannie. Time for another adventure,” Cranker says with a grin.

  We leave our old path, making more marks with the charcoal along the new route. It’s easier going; there’s less garbage as we get farther from the dome. The overturned buses and cars turn into flat chunks of broken road, and soon we walk through houses again, but we’re on the other side of the center of the City, the opposite side from where Grannie is.

  The dog pops his head up now and then to make sure we’re following. The sun dips lower in the sky then sets. Suddenly the dog does a YIP! YIP! We see him head back the way we just come.

  “What the jigger’s wrong with him now?” Cranker says. He’s about to flare into a foul mood when I stop him. There ahead, near where the dog took off, there’s something lying in the road.

  A body.

  The person is slumped in a long cloak, and four people stand around, looking down. The gang of thieves from the gates! I can see the shaved-head leader. Cranker ducks behind a house, and I follow. They don’t see us.

  I peek around the house, and it’s a boy on the ground. I can see his face now. He’s got ginger hair. He’s awake, but he’s hurt. His foot is in a funny angle, like it’s broke. He looks up at the faces above him, and he says something, but I can’t make it out.

  He doesn’t look afraid, though.

  The shaved-head thief says, “Water? Why’d we share water with you?” Then he spits at the road. I hear the rest of the gang growl and rumble. They shift a little.

  Cranker says, quiet, “Mann, look at his arm.” The boy on the ground has a red armband under his cloak. It says “W1” on it, plain as day.

  “W1?” I whisper. Cranker nods. “William1? Must be the same boy from the door,” Cranker says, a little awed. “Or kin, anyway.”

  “We got to do something,” I say, but Cranker is already working. He builds in the rubble behind me, lifting rocks, placing them, lifting more, fast and sure. In a moment I see it’s a body he’s making, like the man of rubble crowned “William1” back at the dome. He places everything just right, and Cranker’s garbage man shapes up quick.

  “What you doing?” I whisper.

  “Givin’ us a chance,” he says without looking up.

  I peek around the house again, and the thieves bully William1 on the ground. But he seems brave. I hear him say, “Take it,” then he hands over a book from inside his cloak, but the thieves don’t want it. They leaf through it without looking, sniff it, tear out pages into little shreds, crumple them, and laugh and mock. Then they toss the ruined book on the road, a few torn pages blow along and away. William1 watches it fall but doesn’t speak.

  The thieves could take whatever they want from him, but they’re having too much fun to hurry. One of the girls tugs at William1’s cloak and shrieks. She found something.

  She takes a water jug out of his pocket and upends it. Empty. But a glass jug, not broke, is valuable. She slips it into her coat and eyes William1’s other pockets.

  “We got to help him,” I whisper to Cranker, who is still working fast behind me. I want to help William1, but I got a whittling knife and no skill as a fighter. No stomach for it, either.

  Cranker finishes his man of rubble and lights a small fire, quick. There’s plenty of wood to burn at hand. He uses the flint Grannie gave him, and the spark flares up and the flames catch. He adds another small pile of wood. Soon the thieves are going to notice us.

  The flames flicker behind the garbage figure, and then I see what Cranker is doing: the flickering image of a tall man appears on the road beside the house. Cranker made a shadow figure, from rubble and fire, that looks just like a man.

  “Now it’s three against four. Go, step out, call them, Mann,” Cranker says, shoving me. I got no time to ask what he thinks he’s doing. I stumble out onto the road, and all eyes turn toward me. I stand as tall as I can.

  “Hey, it’s that big baby-lovin’ fool from the gates!” one of the gang calls. I move into the road, and I see that the shadow of the man of rubble looks like a big man is standing behind me. The shadow figure flares out into the road and up onto the side of a house.

  I take a deep breath.

  “What do you want with William1?” I call out. I see William1 look at me in surprise. He don’t know me. I don’t know him. But I put my feet in his muddy footprints. I left my mark same place as he did at the door. I seen his image crowned in the rubble.

  I know him, where he’s been, well enough.

  The shaved-head leader turns toward me. He takes a step, then another. He’s got that toothless grin that makes me shudder. But I stand my ground.

  “What the jigger are you doing here?” he shouts. “And where’s t’other one? The short one?”

  Cranker steps out from the house with his slingshot loaded and aimed. The thieves all got sticks, bricks, but a slingshot is rare, and Cranker’s is new. And he’s deadly. Even if they don’t know that, he looks deadly. Fiercer than anyone else standing there, anyway. A few of them step back, just a little.

  “First one of you thieving beggars moves is first to lose an eye!” Cranker snarls. He’s curled like a bow, a tight little spring, and I fought him all my life. He’s never been above biting. Or spitting. He’d be worth two of them in a fight, I bet. Me, though, they’d have no trouble with. I got my knife in my hand, but I alone know it’s only ever been used to make a baby soother.

  The fire behind the house rages now, sends our third man flickering across the road. A few of the thieves look at it, nervous. If I didn’t know it was just fire and garbage, I’d be a little nervous, too. Looks awful big. But the leader has his doubts.

  “It’s just two against four, far as I can see,” Shaved-Head says, taking a step closer.

  We all stare at each other. Cranker’s arm starts to shake from holding the heavy piece of rubber back to his ear.

  “Which eye you want to lose?” Cranker spits back.

  I can’t see any way to end this that won’t let blood. William1 has pushed himself to stand up but can’t put weight on his foot.

  “It’s four against four,” he says evenly. And then a thief shoves him, and he sprawls back onto the ground. They all laugh. He won’t cry out, I notice.

  Stay down, I think.

  Then it happens.

  YIP! YIP! A speeding black shadow whips out of the darkness and leaps into the group of thieves, snarling and snapping.

  The one-eyed dog! He grabs onto Shaved-Head, tugs his arm, growling and fierce. Then another dog, one I never seen before, walks out of the darkness behind us. It’s a huge mutt, gray and shaggy, and stands tall as my hip. It steps between me and Cranker, head down, teeth-bared, chest rumbling.

  The thieves all spy the dog behind me then turn and run down the road. I see one fall, then cry out, a girl I think by the shriek, and run off holding an arm. The dogs chase them, worrying the thieves into the darkness.

  I hear another squeal and shout, then nothing.

  “Stay gone!” Cranker snarls, lowering the slingshot. We trot over to William1, who’s standing on one foot.

  “We seen your door,” Cranker says. “Said W1 on it.”

  “He’s Cranker. I’m Mann. You William1?” I ask. The boy nods.

  “Yes, I’m William1. So you saw my door? It�
��s still standing then. Thank you for saving me.” William1 bends to pick up the ruined book on the road, but he can’t reach it easily and winces, so I get it and hand it to him. He opens it, but all the pages are ripped out, tore up, blown away. He puts the ruined book back into his cloak.

  “Do you have any water?” he asks. His voice is awful raspy.

  I hand him my FatRat skin, he takes a sip. Then another. He’s wearing a fine black cloak, black pants, and a black shirt. He has a leather bag over his shoulder. He’s rich, he must be with such fine clothes. He’s about our age. He’s got the same amount of fuzzy hair on his chin as Cranker, the same boy-man voice. He points at the house beside Cranker’s fire, which is burning lower. The house has a sound front porch.

  “Let’s go by the fire. I have to sit down.” Me and Cranker each hold him under an arm, and we help him hobble over to the porch.

  “Nice man of garbage,” William1 says, looking at Cranker’s work. He laughs a little, an easy laugh, and I like him. But I can see he’s nothing like Cranker and me. He’s had a softer life than us, for one thing, I can tell by his long, fine hands. Plus he seems older than us put together, but he’s not older — it’s just the way he walks and talks, like he’s used to being in charge. Cranker tends the fire, and we share some of our hard bread with William1. Cranker heads out for a few minutes then comes back with two dead FatRats, and we skin them and set them to roast on the fire.

  Then we lay out our sleeping rolls and doze while dinner cooks. William1 wraps himself in his cloak and groans as he sets out his leg. Cranker and me don’t say it, but he needs help. The only person I know could help him is Grannie.

  We talk a little, easier and easier with each other. I want to ask him all about his door, where he’s from, but I’m not used to new people. I start slow.

  “How’d you hurt your foot?”

  “Nothing very interesting, I’m afraid. I twisted it in the garbage pile trying to outrun those — thieving beggars did you call them? — then limped as far as I could, looking for help. Again, thank you to you and your creatures for saving me.”

  “You’re easy pickings, that’s true enough,” Cranker grunts. William1 draws his cloak closer around him.

  “They’re not our creatures, the dogs. I mean the one-eyed dog been tailing us since back home, but that other gray monster I never seen before. We come from a little village, just ten houses, three days from the gates by cart,” I say. I’m all chatty. William1 looks at me.

  “You’re the first people I’ve talked to out here, other than the thieves, and that wasn’t exactly a civilized conver-sation. I have so many questions to ask you. But first, can you tell me where we are?” It’s an odd question, and I shrug. “We’re in the garbage piles of Oculum City, like everyone else,” I say.

  He’s about to say something when Cranker cuts in. “Dinner’s ready.”

  William1 falls back, silent. He seems exhausted, but his eyes are watchful. He’s hungry, the way he eyes the food. The FatRats are cooked, so we slice them up and offer William1 his share. He tastes it, then spits it out.

  “How can you eat this?” he says. He reaches into his bag and takes out a ball. It’s light pink and orange, like a sunset. I never seen one like it before.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  William1 holds the ball to his nose and breathes deep. He closes his eyes. “It’s a small piece of home,” he says, sad.

  “Does it have a name?” Cranker asks, chewing on a hank of FatRat and spitting a bone out into his hand.

  William1 looks at us funny and frowns. “It’s a peach, of course,” he says. I stop chewing and stare at him. Cranker chokes on his mouthful of FatRat and spits it out.

  “A … peach?” I whisper.

  Cranker looks at me, worried.

  What seemed like a normal boy a moment ago just turned into a crazy boy, we’re both thinking. And we’re stuck with him, since we saved him and his bad foot.

  What do we do now?

  Miranda1

  The last part is the hardest. I make it to the bottom of the rope ladder, but there is still much more space beneath me. With shaking hands, I undo the linen bandages and let them flutter below me, one end tied to the last rung of the ladder. There are strips and strips of bandages; they filled my bedroom floor, but it seems ridiculous now, here in the Outside.

  I have to trust my life to linen bandages.

  I wrap the rope-bandage across my back and hold it against my body, under my arms. I plant my bare feet on the wall, and I slowly let the bandage run through my left hand, then under my right arm. The Treekeepers have shown us this technique for descending a large tree.

  The sun is going down, and the curved wall beneath my bare feet feels warm. I wonder if anyone can see me from inside Oculum. What do I look like? A strange Fandom spider wriggling down the world. Or maybe the Sentries have shut everyone up inside their homes, forbidding them to look? What’s happening now that I have escaped with everyone watching? The children must be very afraid. They watched me escape through the top of our world, and now they know that William1 isn’t dead.

  I slowly walk backward down the curved wall, one foot, another foot, lower and lower. The ground slowly gets closer, and I peek out over this new world. There are houses, broken down and fallen over, as far as I can see. Smoke rises in a few places.

  Are there people out here other than William1? A terrifying thought, but there must be.

  There is no Oculum wall above me for the first time in my life. I can’t scream in fright or give in to fear of the openness all around me. I have no choice but to be brave. If I die, at least it will be out here, in the Outside. Where William1 is.

  I get to the end of the linen bandages, but it is still the height of my house to a landing spot. There are piles of rock and rubble below me, and I have no shoes. I dangle for a while, wondering what to do next.

  My cloak.

  I adore my cloak; of all my clothing it’s the most dear and useful to me. Mother made it for me when I was four, when I first entered her house, and she let it out each year as I grew. It’s hard to think of sacrificing it, but there’s no other choice. I must cut up my cloak.

  Mother would want me to, I realize. She would want me to live. Otherwise, why did she kill Regulus and sacrifice herself so that I could get away? I tie myself securely with the bandage rope and then wriggle out of my cloak. I cut it with the pruning shears then tie the strips together and one end to the last linen bandage.

  Then I descend the final distance, land, and roll on a flat piece of rubble. I’m bruised, I cut my leg, and banged my knees, but I’m unharmed. I look back the way I came. The curved wall of Oculum rises, up, up, up, above me, lost in sky. I can’t see the rope ladder at all from here, just linen strips and my cloak, in shreds.

  Thank you, Mother dear, for your handiwork.

  I slump to the rock and lean against the wall.

  It’s unfathomable what I’ve done. It’s ludicrous, crazy. I suddenly start to shake with exhaustion and fear. I can’t move from this spot. I eat an apple, keep the core in my satchel, and take a sip of water from the water jug. Then I lean back and watch the sun disappear into the ground at the edge of the world, a strange and frightening sight. Darkness comes.

  Where am I? And what have I done?

  I lost the pruning shears after the final cut. They slipped out of my hand and into the rubble below, gone forever. And on the last tear of the cloak, William’s map fluttered out across the ruined world like a bird. It floated a long way before it dropped on the ground.

  The apple seeds are still safe, though. They’re warm and solid against my waist.

  It’s a long and horrible first night outside my world. Foul, long-nosed creatures slip out of the rubble, hiss, and nip at each other, then at me. I throw rocks at them when their eyes glint in the moonlight. As I huddle upon
the rock, I think of Jake47, Isa19, William2, and all the others, and I know only one thing for certain: I must find William1 and return to Oculum, even though we are both as banished from our world now as anyone ever could be.

  Who will tell the children of Oculum the truth about Outside? William and I are the only ones who know.

  Slowly the sky grows pink, and I watch the sun reappear on the opposite side of its sinking. I was too scared in my descent yesterday to really look at the world all around me, but now I do.

  This world is ruined. The houses are fallen, the larger buildings too, and there is only destruction and garbage as far as I can see. It may have been beautiful once, though, judging by the color of the sky and the few trees that hold fast in the rubble.

  There is no movement, no people. There is nothing alive, other than the long-nosed, hissing creatures that appear and disappear in the shadows.

  I look down at my bare feet — how I wish I hadn’t thrown my shoes at Regulus! — then I tear strips from the bottom of William’s shirt and fashion shoes. I shoulder my satchels and pull a long, sturdy, wooden staff from the rubble. I slap it on the rock and sweep it through the air over my head.

  It will do.

  I take in the beautiful sky. It’s strange and frightening to have so much space above me, but I know now that this is how it should be. This is Outside, and it is the truth.

  I turn away from Oculum and start across the wasteland to search for William1.

  It’s treacherous, and every step I take has to be careful and sure. All is silent but for my own breathing, my footfalls upon the rock and garbage, through the brick and glass and machines that I can’t fathom. I see no one, hear nothing.

  And then after a few hours …

  … a sound!

  It floats on the air, and I cannot name it. It’s not a voice. It’s not a machine. It’s just sweet and comforting, and it calls me. I creep cautiously past a fallen house. I don’t know this sound.