Authors: Pittacus Lore
Six's Legacy (9 page)
“That’s it,” he says.
I nod. We stand and stare up at the house and listen to the wind come through the palm fronds. I am holding a bag of celery in my hand.
“I’ll miss this place,” I say. “Even more than the others.”
“Me too.”
“Time for the burn?”
“Yes. You want to do it, or you want me to?”
“I’ll do it.”
Henri pulls out his wallet and drops it on the ground. I pull out mine and do the same. He walks to our truck and comes back with passports, birth certificates, social security cards, checkbooks, credit cards and bank cards, and drops them on the ground. All of the documents and materials related to our identities here, all of them forged and manufactured. I grab from the truck a small gas can we keep for emergencies. I pour the gas over the small pile. My current name is Daniel Jones. My story is that I grew up in California and moved here because of my dad’s job as a computer programmer. Daniel Jones is about to disappear. I light a match and drop it, and the pile ignites. Another one of my lives, gone. As we always do, Henri and I stand and watch the fire.
Bye, Daniel,
I think,
it was nice knowing you.
When the fire burns down, Henri looks over at me.
“We gotta go.”
“I know.”
“These islands were never safe. They’re too hard to leave quickly, too hard to escape from. It was foolish of us to come here.”
I nod. He is right, and I know it. But I’m still reluctant to leave. We came here because I wanted to, and for the first time, Henri let me choose where we were going. We’ve been here nine months, and it’s the longest we have stayed in any one place since leaving Lorien. I’ll miss the sun and the warmth. I’ll miss the gecko that watched from the wall each morning as I ate breakfast. Though there are literally millions of geckos in south Florida, I swear this one follows me to school and seems to be everywhere I am. I’ll miss the thunderstorms that seem to come from out of nowhere, the way everything is still and quiet in the early-morning hours before the terns arrive. I’ll miss the dolphins that sometimes feed when the sun sets. I’ll even miss the smell of sulfur from the rotting seaweed at the base of the shore, the way that it fills the house and penetrates our dreams while we sleep.
“Get rid of the celery and I’ll wait in the truck,” Henri says. “Then it’s time.”
I enter a thicket of trees off to the right of the truck. There are three Key deer already waiting. I dump the bag of celery out at their feet and crouch down and pet each of them in turn. They allow me to, having long gotten over their skittishness. One of them raises his head and looks at me. Dark, blank eyes staring back. It almost feels as though he passes something to me. A shudder runs up my spine. He drops his head and continues eating.
“Good luck, little friends,” I say, and walk to the truck and climb into the passenger seat.
We watch the house grow smaller in the side mirrors until Henri pulls onto the main road and the house disappears. It’s a Saturday. I wonder what’s happening at the party without me. What they’re saying about the way that I left and what they’ll say on Monday when I’m not at school. I wish I could have said good-bye. I’ll never see anyone I knew here ever again. I’ll never speak to any of them. And they’ll never know what I am or why I left. After a few months, or maybe a few weeks, none of them will probably ever think of me again.
Before we get on the highway, Henri pulls over to gas up the truck. As he works the pump, I start looking through an atlas he keeps on the middle of the seat. We’ve had the atlas since we arrived on this planet. It has lines drawn to and from every place we’ve ever lived. At this point, there are lines crisscrossing all of the United States. We know we should get rid of it, but it’s really the only piece of our life together that we have. Normal people have photos and videos and journals; we have the atlas. Picking it up and looking through it, I can see Henri has drawn a new line from Florida to Ohio. When I think of Ohio, I think of cows and corn and nice people. I know the license plate says THE HEART OF IT ALL. What “All” is, I don’t know, but I guess I’ll find out.
Henri gets back into the truck. He has bought a couple of sodas and a bag of chips. He pulls away and starts heading toward U.S. 1, which will take us north. He reaches for the atlas.
“Do you think there are people in Ohio?” I joke.
He chuckles. “I would imagine there are a few. And we might even get lucky and find cars and TV there, too.”
I nod. Maybe it won’t be as bad as I think.
“What do you think of the name ‘John Smith’?” I ask.
“Is that what you’ve settled on?”
“I think so,” I say. I’ve never been a John before, or a Smith.
“It doesn’t get any more common than that. I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Smith.”
I smile. “Yeah, I think I like ‘John Smith.’”
“I’ll create your forms when we stop.”
A mile later we are off the island and cruising across the bridge. The waters pass below us. They are calm and the moonlight is shimmering on the small waves, creating dapples of white in the crests. On the right is the ocean, on the left is the gulf; it is, in essence, the same water, but with two different names. I have the urge to cry, but I don’t. It’s not that I’m necessarily sad to leave Florida, but I’m tired of running. I’m tired of dreaming up a new name every six months. Tired of new houses, new schools. I wonder if it’ll ever be possible for us to stop.
The legacies continue to develop
My name is Marina, as of the sea, but I wasn’t called that until much later. In the beginning I was known merely as Seven, one of the nine surviving Garde from the planet Lorien, the fate of which was, and still is, left in our hands. Those of us who aren’t lost. Those of us still alive.
I was six when we landed. When the ship jolted to a halt on Earth, even at my young age I sensed how much was at stake for us—nine Cêpan, nine Garde—and that our only chance waited for us here. We had entered the planet’s atmosphere in the midst of a storm of our own creation, and as our feet found Earth for the very first time, I remember the wisps of steam that rolled off the ship and the goose bumps that covered my arms. I hadn’t felt the wind in a year, and it was freezing outside. Somebody was there waiting for us. I don’t know who he was, only that he handed each Cêpan two sets of clothes and a large envelope. I still don’t know what was in it.
As a group we huddled together, knowing we might never see one another again. Words were spoken, hugs were given, and then we split up, as we knew we must, walking in pairs in nine different directions. I kept peering over my shoulder as the others receded in the distance until, very slowly, one by one, they all disappeared. And then it was just Adelina and me, alone. I realize now just how scared Adelina must have been.
I remember boarding a ship headed to some unknown destination. I remember two or three different trains after that. Adelina and I kept to ourselves, huddled against each other in obscure corners, away from whoever might be around. We hiked from town to town, over mountains and across fields, knocking on doors that were quickly slammed in our faces. We were hungry, tired, and scared. I remember sitting on a sidewalk begging for change. I remember crying instead of sleeping. I’m certain that Adelina gave away some of our precious gems from Lorien for nothing more than warm meals, so great was our need. Perhaps she gave them all away. And then we found this place in Spain.
A stern-looking woman I would come to know as Sister Lucia answered the heavy oak door. She squinted at Adelina, taking in her desperation, the way her shoulders drooped.
“Do you believe in the word of God?” the woman asked in Spanish, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes in scrutiny.
“The word of God is my vow,” Adelina replied with a solemn nod. I don’t know how she knew this response—perhaps she learned it when we stayed in a church basement weeks before—but it was the right one. Sister Lucia opened the door.
We’ve been here ever since, eleven years in this stone convent with its musty rooms, drafty hallways, and hard floors like slabs of ice. Aside from the few visitors, the internet is my only source to the world outside our small town; and I search it constantly, looking for some indication that the others are out there, that they’re searching, maybe fighting. Some sign that I’m not alone, because at this point I can’t say that Adelina still believes, that she’s still with me. Her attitude changed somewhere over the mountains. Maybe it was with the slam of one of the doors that shut a starving woman and her child out in the cold for another night. Whatever it was, Adelina seems to have lost the urgency of staying on the move, and her faith in the resurgence of Lorien seems to have been replaced by the faith shared by the convent’s Sisters. I remember a distinct shift in Adelina’s eyes, her sudden speeches on the need for guidance and structure if we were to survive.
My faith in Lorien remains intact. In India, a year and a half ago, four different people witnessed a boy move objects with his mind. While the significance behind the event was small at first, the boy’s abrupt disappearance shortly thereafter created much buzz in the region, and a hunt for him began. As far as I know, he hasn’t been found.
A few months ago there was news of a girl in Argentina who, in the wake of an earthquake, lifted a five-ton slab of concrete to save a man trapped beneath it; and when news of this heroic act spread, she disappeared. Like the boy in India, she’s still missing.
And then there’s the father-son duo making all the news now in America, in Ohio, who the police are hunting after the two allegedly demolished an entire school by themselves, killing five people in the process. They left no trace behind other than mysterious heaps of ash.
“It looks like a battle took place here. I don’t know how else to explain it,” the head investigator was quoted as saying. “But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this, and we will find Henri Smith and his son, John.”
Perhaps John Smith, if that’s his real name, is merely a boy with a grudge who was pushed too far. But I don’t think that’s the case. My heart races whenever his picture appears on my screen. I’m gripped with a profound desperation that I can’t quite explain. I can feel it in my bones that he’s one of us. And I know, somehow, that I must find him.
I perch my arms on the cold windowsill and watch the snowflakes fall from the dark sky and settle on the side of the mountain, which is dotted with pine, cork oak, and beech trees, with patches of craggy rock mixed throughout. The snow hasn’t let up all day, and they say it will continue through the night. I can barely see beyond the edge of town to the north—the world lost in a white haze. During the day, when the sky is clear, it’s possible to see the watery blue smudge of the Bay of Biscay. But not in this weather, and I can’t help but wonder what might lurk in all that white beyond my line of sight.
I look behind me. In the high-ceilinged, drafty room, there are two computers. To use one we must add our name to a list and wait our turn. At night there’s a ten-minute time limit if somebody is waiting, twenty minutes if there isn’t. The two girls using them now have been on for a half hour each, and my patience is thin. I haven’t checked the news since this morning when I snuck in before breakfast. At that time nothing new about John Smith had been reported, but I’m almost shaking in anticipation over what might have sprung up since then. Some new discovery has been uncovered each day since the story first broke.
Santa Teresa is a convent that doubles as an orphanage for girls. I’m now the oldest out of thirty-seven, a distinction I’ve held for six months, after the last girl who turned eighteen left. At eighteen we must all make the choice to strike out on our own or to forge a life within the Church. The birthday Adelina and I created for me when we arrived is less than five months away, and that’s when I’ll turn eighteen, too. Of all who’ve reached eighteen, not a single girl has stayed. I can’t blame them. Like the others, I have every intention of leaving this prison behind, whether or not Adelina comes with me. And it’s hard to imagine she will.
The convent itself was built entirely of stone in 1510 and is much too large for the small number of us who live here. Most of the rooms stand empty; and those that aren’t are imbued with a damp, earthy feel, and our voices echo to the ceiling and back. The convent rests atop the highest hill overlooking the village that shares the same name, nestled deep within the Picos de Europa Mountains of northern Spain. The village, like the convent, is made of rock, with many structures built straight into the mountainside. Walking down the town’s main road, Calle Principal, it’s impossible not to be inundated by the disrepair. It’s as though this place was forgotten by time, and the passing centuries have turned most everything to shades of mossy green and brown, while the pervasive smell of mildew hangs in the air.
It’s been five years since I started begging Adelina to leave, to keep moving like we were instructed to. “I’m going to be getting my Legacies soon, and I don’t want to discover them here, with all of these girls and nuns around,” I’d said. She had refused, quoting La Biblia Reina Valera that we must stand still for salvation. I’ve begged every year since, and every year she looks at me with blank eyes and talks me down with a different religious quote. But I know my salvation does not lie here.
