Phoenix Overture

8

NOT EVERYONE WAS willing to leave the outskirts of the city.

Riots erupted throughout the Community, sending people to the Center to be treated for injuries. Plague victims were quarantined even more fiercely—taken to forgotten quarters of the old city and left with food and water and a handful of barely trained medics to treat hundreds of people.

People began stealing food and supplies from one another, and scavengers were in even more demand, sent to retrieve necessities in the old city. Stef’s trap was abandoned, and the three of us hardly saw the inside of the concert hall. Instead, Stef and I accompanied Fayden on his scavenging missions, both for provisions for the three of us, and for what other people sent him to find.

It was hard work, made even more difficult by the dilapidated state of the buildings. We braved rotting floors and roofs that shuddered in the faintest of winds. Where homes and towers had slumped sideways after earthquakes, we had to secure ourselves with rope and slide or rappel into treacherous areas; all the easy marks had been looted long ago.

Animals prowled the ruins, hunting for food. When it was my turn to stand guard, Fayden armed me with a lit torch and ordered me to shoo away anything that drew too near. Feral cats and dogs slinked around the edges of whatever area we searched, while snakes, spiders, and insects filled the cracks and crevices of this ancient city.

Conditions in the Community deteriorated. Fayden and I saw Father only once, days after we’d sneaked into his house and stolen our belongings. We stayed with Stef, hidden in his parent-free house whenever we had to return to the Community. Some nights, we just stayed in the old city like Fayden used to do.

In some ways, it was the freest I’d ever been, with no Father to threaten me.

One night, when the three of us were laying out our sleeping bags atop a high-rise building, Stef asked, “We’re going, right? With the rest of the Community?”

“I don’t really want to go. I like this. Here.” Fayden motioned across the dark city and glanced at me. “But I guess we don’t have much of a choice. What do you think, Sam?”

I shrugged. “It seems ridiculous to take everyone. That’s over two million people. Why do we all have to go? What can a bunch of farmers and scavengers do to rescue Janan?”

“I know, but you wouldn’t stay here, would you?” Fayden scowled. “You’d go with the rest of the Community, right?”

I looked at Stef, who was slicing a wedge of cheese for our dinner. He wore a thoughtful expression. “What about your trap?” I asked.

He lowered the cheese and knife. “If we’re somewhere else, we won’t need the trap.”

“You won’t ever know if they’d have approved it for wider use.”

“There will be other opportunities to petition them for work. I’m sure they’ll come up with lots of reasons to need my services while we travel. Whenever we get where we’re going.”

“But the glass. The trolls.” The revenge I needed.

The last was mere thought, but Stef looked at me as though he understood. “The world is full of monsters. Be angry about what happened. Fight back when you can. But don’t let that anger and fight consume your life. You deserve to live, too.”

Was that why I was so resistant to go? Because I couldn’t see beyond my own pain?

Certainly that was part of it, but I didn’t think I was wrong about Meuric’s declaration that we would all go to rescue Janan. If he was such a great warrior, and he’d taken all the best warriors with him, why couldn’t he rescue himself? What could the rest of us do? We had numbers, certainly, but with the drought and hunger and plague, population wouldn’t be on our side for long. Especially since—as Stef said—the world was full of monsters.

How many would die on this journey north?

Would I even survive it?

Fayden and Stef would look out for me. And I couldn’t abandon them, either.

“I still think it’s a dumb idea.”

“No one’s arguing that.” Stef flashed a grin. “It’s a Meuric idea, though. He’s absolutely certain that we all worship Janan just as much as he does, so to him, this is a reasonable demand. We all go.”

What about the people who couldn’t?

Well, unless music could help them make the journey, I was useless to them.

“If you’re both going, then I’m going.” I said it with a smile, but I knew neither of them bought it. “Besides, someone has to keep you two out of trouble.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Fayden grabbed a bit of cheese, ignoring Stef’s scowling. “We have to stick together, all three of us.”

And that was the truth. I’d already lost my mother. I couldn’t lose my brother and best friend, too.

“What’s going to happen to the people who stay behind?” I asked. From this rooftop, I could just spot the fires of the plague quarantine area. “What about the people who are sick, who won’t be able to make the journey Meuric is proposing?”

“You want the truth?” Fayden raised an eyebrow.

I nodded.

“I don’t think they’re going to survive anyway, but especially not without the Community.” His voice turned lower, sadder. “I think they’re all going to die here, stuck in the memories of a city that’s crumbling to nothing.”

Those words haunted me all through the night, and rang through my thoughts as sunlight poured across the city. Maybe it was guilt, or some repressed sense of obligation, but after Stef, Fayden, and I ate a quick breakfast, I announced that I wanted to go back to the Community. I wanted to see Father.

“You want to see him?” Stef’s face twisted in disbelief. “After what he did to you?”

“I want to find out whether he’s going.” I looked at my hands. “I know what he did to me. And I don’t want to travel with him. I just . . . need to know, I guess.” It felt presumptuous to say, but: “Mother would want someone to check on him.”

“Do you think this is a smart idea?” Fayden scowled and finished loading his backpack.

“I don’t know. Maybe not.” Still, I had to try.

That afternoon, the three of us headed back to the Community—Stef to his aunts’ house, where he was helping pack the wagon we’d all be sharing, and Fayden and me to our father’s house at the far edge of the Community.

The walks would take longer than usual, because we had to go around areas that were consumed with riots. Even from here, I could hear the crackle and scream of fire, and smell the acrid smoke.

“Don’t be upset,” Fayden said, after a few minutes of walking in charged silence.

“Discussions that start like that never lead anywhere good.” I shoved my hands into my pockets as we ducked around a gaggle of children carrying baskets of supplies. With the riots not far off, it was incredible their parents would let them out. Unless they had fathers like Fayden and I did, who didn’t care at all.

My brother hesitated. “I’ve been wondering why Mother chose you. For music, I mean. Why did you get to see that part of her, but not me? And did Father know? Was I the only one who didn’t?”

I pressed my mouth into a line and shrugged. “I don’t know. She never told me whether anyone else knew. Her mother did, obviously. But I don’t know if her friends knew. I’ve never been able to bring myself to ask, in case they didn’t. In case they decided that selling the instruments for parts was more important than preserving them.”

“Preserving them for what?”

“For everyone?” I kept my eyes on the ground. “I guess— I guess there’s always been a part of me that’s wanted to share music. When you and Stef started listening to my playing, that was amazing. And just think about the fact that there’s a concert hall in the city, where people used to come from all over to hear music performed. Our grandmother was a performer. Mother said music was Grandmother’s job.”

“I can’t even imagine what her world must have been like.” Fayden shook his head.

I could, a little. The music parts, anyway. “I guess,” I went on, “there’s a piece of me that’s always hoped to do the same. To be like her—that one day the Community wouldn’t be focused solely on survival. That one day the Community would be able to take in something more. Like music.”

“That’s not a bad dream.” My brother smiled a little.

“Mother had the same dream, she said once.” I hesitated. “When I told her I wanted to be like Grandmother, she said she wanted the same thing. For me. For her.”

Tense silence stretched between us as we rounded a corner.

“I don’t think she chose me,” I said at last. “I think she saw me roaming through the forest one day, mimicking birdsongs. Or I saw her doing it, and copied. I’m not sure. I only remember a little of that day. She actually did take me foraging then, because I was too young to leave alone.”

Fayden nodded.

I’d never told anyone this before, except Mother: “I remember hearing this overwhelming sound, and it just filled me up. Like my heart was too big for my chest. I asked about it, why the forest sounds made me feel like that.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘You have music in you.’”

Fayden lowered his eyes. “I was always jealous that she took you foraging, that she spent time with you and never seemed to care that you didn’t come home with much food. I didn’t realize what was actually happening, which makes me feel incredibly stupid.”

I released a weak chuckle. “I was always jealous that Father actually liked you, and that Mother didn’t have to make weekly appeals for your life.”

He scowled. “Was it that bad?”

“Seems like it.”

“And yet you want to make sure he comes with us?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think he should be left behind. He doesn’t deserve to die.” And I couldn’t stop thinking about what Fayden had said, that grim proclamation that everyone left here would die without the Community.

“All right.” He didn’t say whether he agreed, though I wished he would. His expression stayed thoughtful the remainder of the walk, and too soon, we stood before Father’s house.

Heart pounding, I knocked on the door.

It took several minutes before he answered, and he clutched the doorknob as though it was the only thing keeping him upright. He listed to one side, eyelids drooping, and his mouth pulled into a sneer when he recognized us.

“What are you doing here?” His words slurred, and his breath reeked of alcohol, enough to make me want to stagger back.

Fayden was a pillar of strength beside me, though when he spoke, his words were clipped and his eyes were hard. “We came to find out whether you’re going with the rest of the Community to find Janan.”

Father’s slowly shifting expression was the hush before a thunderstorm.

“And,” I added quickly, “whether we can help you pack or . . . or if you need anything.”

With a withering look, Father took a shaking step toward us. “What I’m going to do is no longer your business. You abandoned me here. First your mother left, and now you.” He turned on me. “And you! Why would I want your help with anything? You useless boy.”

I steeled myself and tried to keep my voice steady, but the edges cracked like glass. “Father, we need to know. Are you going with the rest of the Community?”

“No.” He spat a brown glob that landed at my feet. “No, I’m not going with the rest of the Community.”

I glanced at Fayden, but his jaw was set and his fists curled behind his back.

“Why won’t you go?” I’d always thought Father was as devoted to Janan as anyone else, what with him wanting to send me on Janan’s quest. If I’d gone, I’d be one of those warriors no one cared about—as long as the Community found Janan.

Father’s tone grew savage and raw. “What care do I have for the Community? My wife is gone because someone let her die. My only son abandoned me when I needed him. He abandoned me for a murderer, a boy who’d just as soon let everyone around him die, as long as it meant he could stay safe.”

“I didn’t—”

Fayden jerked my arm, making me stumble backward just as Father’s fist flew through the air where my head had been a moment before.

“You did let her die!” Father’s rage crescendoed, drawing looks from neighbors and passersby. “You did nothing when you could have saved her. Her death is your fault, you stupid, selfish, useless boy. I wish it had been you who died.”

I staggered back as my brother stepped in front of me. “Don’t talk that way, Father,” Fayden said. “He’s still your son.”

“Neither of you are my sons.” The door slammed shut, and rattled in its frame.

I clenched my jaw so hard that my eyes watered.

“Come on,” said Fayden. “If he wants to stay, we can’t force him.”

“But he’s our father,” I whispered.

My brother shook his head. “We don’t have a father anymore. We have each other.”