Authors: Elizabeth Scott
Grace (11 page)
I left them because all they are is a place where people are born to die.
I think of the City, of the people I saw waiting in lines. Of the tick-tock man, and the terror he brought. That was Jerusha’s world, and he left it for the same reasons I left mine.
Keran Berj’s world and the People’s world, the worlds Jerusha and I have traveled through, are ones that promise that death brings glory. That life is only about death.
But it shouldn’t be.
Life is about being alive. It is about
living.
living.
If that choice—life—has made us both do things that have stained our minds and souls, it is a price I am willing to pay. I will pay in memory. I will pay by standing by my choice to be here. To be alive.
I will leave the beliefs I was told were true behind. I will find ones that will show me how to hold life gently. That will teach me to respect others and not see them as less than human.
Jerusha already knows these things, and yet he let me judge him. He let me judge him, and he saved me. He is actually more human than I am.
He is more human than anyone I have ever known.
And he is so alone. I have never had a friend, not a true one, but at least I had the Hills, the land, around me. He only had Keran Berj.
Jerusha has never had anything or anyone to really depend on since he was very young. He has never had a true friend.
We have both traveled down strange roads, down paths full of lies. Jerusha saw the evil in his, and I saw the empty heart of mine.
We have both done terrible things to be here. We have both come so far to be new. I know we will both try to do that now. Not just because we want to live, but also because we have to.
We must live to remember what we have done.
We will get off this train and try to cross the border.
We may not make it across. I know that. I have always known that, and I know he does too.
And so Jerusha and I wait, only leaving when the flow of people exiting the train has slowed to a trickle. We can see people walking toward the Guard Station and the border. Toward the path that curves off into the distance.
My feet don’t hurt anymore. I am ready to stand.
I am lighter than air, soaring.
CHAPTER 40
A
s Jerusha and I get off the train, every breath I take tastes like a beginning, and the sun is beautiful, gilding everything and everyone around us.
s Jerusha and I get off the train, every breath I take tastes like a beginning, and the sun is beautiful, gilding everything and everyone around us.
I have never felt so alive. I ache, I am exhausted, but I am here at the border.
And I am here because I was helped by someone I was taught to hate.
Jerusha has helped me, but more than that, he has shown me something. I see that everyone around us is not a thing. Not a sheep. I see that everyone is a person.
Everyone I see matters to someone else.
Everyone who has died by my hand or at the whim of Keran Berj or from the People’s fury is mourned.
It is not just one person, or even one group of people who matter, who deserve to live.
I see that now. Everyone deserves life. It has taken me so long to reach this point.
It has taken me my whole life.
And now here I stand where I have struggled to be. Where I have longed to be.
Here I am, and I am scared.
I see the border, marked by a thin line painted on rocks resting on the sand. I see the station we must pass through to reach it. I see the path that lies just beyond it.
I see Guards standing by it, waiting. Their faces are a blur in the morning light.
Jerusha stands still beside me. He knows as well as I do what could happen now.
I tense, then hold out my hand like a sister would.
Like a friend would.
After a moment, Jerusha clasps his hand to mine.
I let my fingers twine with his, and we walk together into the light. To the waiting path. To the border.
To life.
Acknowledgments
M
any thanks to Julie Strauss-Gabel, who looked at this book, saw what it could be, and made it all happen.
any thanks to Julie Strauss-Gabel, who looked at this book, saw what it could be, and made it all happen.
Thanks also go to Lisa Yoskowitz, for always being so kind to me.
As always, thanks to the usual suspects, including everyone who read drafts of this book, especially Jessica Brearton, Katharine Beutner, Clara Jaeckel, and my husband.
And of course, thanks go to Robin Rue, who always believes in me, and to Diana Fox, who has held my hand so many times that I owe her about twenty dinners.
Finally, many, many thanks to The Sheep Meadow Press for permission to use an excerpt from Miklós Radnóti’s stunning poem, “Forced March.” The poem can be found in
Clouded Sky: Poems by Miklós Radnóti
, with translations by Steven Polgar, Stephen Berg, and S. J. Marks.
Clouded Sky: Poems by Miklós Radnóti
, with translations by Steven Polgar, Stephen Berg, and S. J. Marks.
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