Chapter 29
I’m all ears as Gryphon reviews basic moves using what he calls the bo staff.
We stand in a circle, him at the center.
It seems the others have trained with this weapon before, but it’s all new to me.
Still, it becomes immediately clear how a tool that allows you to strike from a distance is beneficial in combat.
We’re told to treat it as an extension of our arm or leg, only deadlier.
Something crucial when fighting non-human creatures.
“Like what?” I ask. I can’t let it drop. Gryphon told me he’s training the others so they’re able to protect themselves. I don’t know if he shared specifics, but if he knows who or what is hunting us inside the Wall, he needs to spill.
Gryphon’s jaw twitches in a gesture I’ve come to suspect means that I’ve annoyed him. “Dangerous animals,” he says. “Beasts.”
“What beasts? Mountain lions?” We’re told our ancestors drove them to extinction generations ago, but then I think of my father, mutilated by a creature no one ever found. “I’ve never seen any.”
“Maybe you were too busy being Little Miss Perfect to notice,” Sal says darkly.
Her words shoot an arrow directly at my heart. I thought we’d all been getting along. “I’m not perfect.”
Meryl puts her hand on Sal’s arm, but the Cobbler girl shakes her off.
“Coulda fooled us. Always turned your schoolwork in early. Never missed a sermon. Accepted Nikola as your first betrothed as if you’d been given the moon, even though we all know you wanted someone else.
” She shoots Gryphon a glance, and I swallow my gasp before she locks her angry eyes back on me.
“Let my grandmother die.” She uses her foot to flip a staff into her hand, tosses it to me, and then grabs another.
“We saw you, those of us who didn’t fit inside the system. ”
“Didn’t fit in?” I ask, bewildered. No one was more of an outsider than me. “Everyone knows you’ve always had a close friend in Meryl. That your betrothed, Simon, will be an excellent addition to the Cobbler House.”
Sal shakes her head. “Simon is awful. I’d never pick him.”
“Salvatora,” Meryl says. Her voice is firm. “That’s not Rose’s fault and you know it.”
“But it’s people like her who make it possible!
” Sal yells. She pitches her voice into a singsong and swivels her head mockingly, uttering the morning pledge that every student says at the start of the school day, but that I always said the loudest. “Protect the system and it shields us all, follow the rules so we never fall.” She spits onto the ground.
“Meanwhile, I no longer have a gran, I’m stuck with a fiancé I’ll never love and required to do a job I hate, all because we’re trapped in rotten Noah’s Valley. ”
Trapped? There might be danger in here, but there’s far worse out there.
We’d be dead without the Wall! What I wouldn’t give to have Jonas safely back inside with the rest of us.
I open my mouth to argue, but before I can say a word, Sal’s on me.
She swings the bo staff for my shins and gets a good thwack in.
I jump back, biting my tongue to keep from crying out.
I find my stance quickly, but not in time to block her shoulder strike.
I look to Gryphon for help.
He’s holding the others back. He means for Sal and me to fight this out.
Some teacher. I duck and pivot just in time to dodge her swing for my head. She’s coming for blood. I shove my staff between her ankles and pull to the left, forcing her legs to fight each other for balance. She drops to the ground.
I turn, offering her a hand. “I’m sorry.”
I’m surprised to feel wetness on my face. Am I crying? Her strikes left an awful, stinging ache, but it’s more than that. Sal’s hurting in a way that can’t be healed, and she believes I’ve helped cause it.
Rather than accept my hand, she leaps to her feet and shoves the butt of her staff into my stomach. I grunt and double over.
“Sorry?” she says. “The laws you uphold make my life meaningless, and you’re sorry?”
She swings again. My staff flies up to block it. The crack of wood meeting wood echoes through the trees. My arms vibrate with the force.
“Yes,” I say. We’re both panting from the fight. “I had no idea.”
I try to sweep her legs out from under her, but she jumps, imitating a game we used to play as children. Her feet come down at the same time as her weapon, narrowly missing my ear.
“Those of you who aren’t waking up are keeping the rest of us in the dark,” Sal spits. “The old rules don’t work anymore, and maybe they never did, but because of ignorant kiss-asses like you, we’re going to live and die in here like trapped sheep.”
Suddenly, my anger scorches to life, the heat of it like pleasure and pain dancing through my veins.
It messes with my eyes, turning everything overbright.
I’m coming at her, swinging my staff. “Yeah, I followed the rules. What else was I supposed to do? I’m just one person.
” Sal falls backward, and I leap on top of her, my weapon poised.
“I didn’t know there was anything else to do. I didn’t know.”
Her staff swings around, hurtling toward my throat with startling speed. I lift my own to block it in a move I know could break her wrist, but it’s that or feel my trachea crushed.
Iron hands stop our weapons just before they connect.
It’s Gryphon. I gawk at him, my breath heaving.
Oscar, Meryl, Eero, and Marie are staring at us, slack jawed.
“Enough,” he says.
I hate the pity in his expression. Pity for the both of us, it appears.
“You should’ve paid attention,” Sal mutters. She still sounds angry, but also a little scared.
I stare around the circle at the faces of people my age who for weeks if not months have been jeopardizing their safety to train here. It feels unfair, but I know Sal’s right. I should have paid attention much, much earlier than I did.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meeting each of their gazes in turn, just like I did when I vowed to keep their secret safe.
“I’ve been a coward.” I won’t explain why I behaved as I did.
There was a point when the Harvests started ramping up where I should have spoken out, but instead I kept my mouth shut and followed the herd.
“Sal’s right. I’ve kept my head in the sand. ”
“Aw, Rose, you’re not gonna tell her?” Eero asks.
We all turn to look at him. He’s wincing, like it pains him to speak.
“Tell her what?” I ask.
He glances quickly at Sal, then back at the ground. “Jonas made me swear not to share, but you’re being so stubborn right now.”
I want to shake him. “Share what?” I ask.
He points at Sal. “Share that you’ve been treating people like her gran.
That you’re willing to risk being whipped to care for our elderly, even though it’s illegal.
” He drops his hand. “Jonas and I saw you sneaking into the back door of the Forester cottage to treat Matthias’s infected wound when his family had already been told to prepare for his funeral.
Jonas said you were doing the same for all the elderly and made me promise never to spill, but you should at least tell Sal, so she knows you didn’t just let her gran die. ”
Sal’s chest is rising and falling. She steps closer to me. “You tried everything to save Amina?”
I don’t know who to look at. I feel so exposed. Jonas had known about my visits? I’m desperate to take the out that Eero provided me, but I won’t. It’s time to own up to my mistakes.
“No, Salvatora,” I say, “I didn’t. I’m so sorry, but I won’t lie to you.
I hesitated before going for antibiotics.
” I feel bare beneath the truth of it, but I keep going.
“But that day changed me. Your grief and the injustice of it all woke something inside of me. There are villagers alive today who wouldn’t be if not for the lesson your gran taught me. That’s Amina’s legacy.”
“She was too far gone, but you tried anyways.” Sal breathes hard, as if the words cost her. “You did, even knowing the price you might have to pay…and I accused you of killing her.”
My heart aches. “You’d just lost your gran.”
She raises her hands, and I flinch, but the next thing I know, I’m in her embrace. “I’m sorry,” she says simply. “I was wrong.”
She’s surprisingly strong, nearly squeezing the breath out of me. “You were right about me telling on you to the Priest,” I say into her thick, wavy hair.
“Yeah, I know.” She laughs, letting go and stepping back. “You were such a brown noser.”
“But one who took care of so many people inside the village,” Eero says. “And she wouldn’t be here right now with us, training, if she was that same suck-up from before. That counts, too. Not just what we did then, but who we are now.”
He reminds me so much of Jonas in that moment. My throat’s too tight for words, so I only nod, accepting the insult along with the praise.
I can do better. I will do better.
Eero’s face drops as if he’s just thought of something. “Dang, though. There is one more thing.”
My breath catches. I don’t believe I can bear any more. “What?”
He glances down, appearing sorrowful. “It’s like this…” he says, clearly reluctant to spit it out.
I’m in a panic. But when the Carpenter lifts his head, there’s a glint in his eye. He’s grinning. “The last one in is a rotten egg!”
And then he whoops, his pretend sad expression wiped clean, and rushes off into the woods. Oscar throws back his head and matches Eero’s cry before running after him. And then—to my surprise—Gryphon follows. I guess training is over for the day.
“Last one in what?” I ask, feeling dense.
“You’ll see!” Meryl grabs my hand and Salvatora’s and pulls us into the trees.
We soon reach the creek. Eero and Oscar are already horsing around in the water when we arrive.
Jonas would love this, I can’t help but think.
“The trick is not to think about it before jumping in,” Meryl says. She’s tugging her tunic over her head, leaving on just her underclothes. “Because the water is ice-cold.”