It was true, what everyone said: you hated Teacher for telling you. How Sara had loved Teacher, until that day. As much as she loved her own parents, maybe even more. Her eighth birthday: she knew something would happen, something wonderful, that the children who turned eight went someplace special, but nothing more specific than that. The ones who returned—to visit a younger sibling or to have Littles of their own—were older, so much time having passed that they had become different people entirely, and where they’d been and what they’d done was a secret you couldn’t know. It was precisely because it was a secret that it was so special, this new place that awaited outside the walls of the Sanctuary. Anticipation gathered inside her as her birthday approached. So keen was her excitement that never did it occur to her to wonder what would happen to Michael without her; his own day would come. You were warned by Teacher never to talk about this, but of course the Littles did, when Teacher wasn’t around. In the washroom or dining hall or at night in the Big Room, whispers passing up and down the lines of cots, the talk was always of release and who was next in line. What was the world like, outside the Sanctuary? Did people live in castles, like the people in books? What animals would they find, and could they speak? (The caged mice Teacher kept in the classroom were, to a one, discouragingly silent.) What wonderful foods were there to eat, what wonderful toys to play with? Never had Sara been so excited, waiting for this glorious day when she would step into the world.
She awoke on the morning of her birthday feeling as if she were floating on a cloud of happiness. And yet somehow she would have to contain this joy until rest time; only then, when the Littles were asleep, would Teacher take her to the special place. Though no one said as much, all through morning meal and circle time she could tell that everyone was delighted for her, except for Michael, who did nothing to hide his envy, grumpily refusing to speak with her. Well, that was Michael. If he couldn’t be happy for her, she wasn’t going to let it spoil her special day. It wasn’t until after lunch, when Teacher called everyone around to say goodbye, that she began to wonder if maybe he knew something she didn’t. What is it, Michael? asked Teacher. Can’t you say goodbye to your sister, can’t you be happy for her? And Michael looked at her and said, It’s not what you think, Sara, then hugged her quickly and ran from the room before she could say a word.
Well, that was strange, she’d thought at the time, and still did, even now, all these years gone by. How had Michael known? Much later, when the two of them were alone again, she’d remembered this scene and asked him about it. How did you know? But Michael could only shake his head. I just did, he said. Not the details, but the kind of thing it was. The way they spoke to us, Mom and Dad, at night, tucking us in. You could see it in their eyes.
But back then, the afternoon of her release, with Michael darting away and Teacher taking her hand, she hadn’t wondered for long. Just chalked it up to Michael being Michael. The final goodbyes, the embraces, the feeling of the moment arriving: Peter was there, and Maus Patal, and Ben Chou and Galen Strauss and Wendy Ramirez and all the rest, touching her, saying her name. Remember us, everyone said. She was holding the bag that contained her things, her clothing and slippers and the little rag doll that she’d had since she was small—you were allowed to take one toy—and Teacher took her by the hand and led her out from the Big Room, into the little courtyard ringed by windows where the children played when the sun was high in the sky, with the swings and the seesaw and the piles of old tires to climb, and through another door into a room she’d never seen before. Like a classroom but empty, the shelves barren, no pictures on the walls.
Teacher sealed the door behind them. A curious and premature pause; Sara had expected more. Where was she going? she asked Teacher. Would it be a long journey? Was someone coming for her? How long was she to wait here, in this room? But Teacher seemed not to hear these questions. She crouched before her, positioning her large, soft face close to Sara’s. Little Sara, she asked, what do you suppose is out there, outside this building, beyond these rooms where you live? And what of the men you sometimes see, the ones who come and go at night, watching over you? Teacher was smiling, but there was something different about this smile, thought Sara, something that made her afraid. She didn’t want to answer, but Teacher was looking straight at her, her face expectant. Sara thought of her mother’s eyes, the night she’d asked her where she slept. A castle? she said, for in her sudden nervousness that was the only thing she could think of. A castle, with a moat? A castle, Teacher said. I see. And what else, Little Sara? The smile was suddenly gone. I don’t know, Sara said. Well, Teacher said, and cleared her throat. It’s not a castle.
And that was when she told her.
Sara hadn’t believed her at first. But not exactly that: she felt as if her mind had split in two, and one half, the half that didn’t know, that believed she was still a Little, sitting in circle and playing in the courtyard and waiting for her parents to tuck her in at night, was saying goodbye to the half that somehow always had. Like she was saying goodbye to herself. It made her feel dizzy and sick, and then she started to cry, and Teacher took her by the hand once more and led her down another hallway and out of the Sanctuary, where her parents were waiting for her, to take her home—the home that Sara and Michael lived in still, that she’d never known existed until that very day. It isn’t true, Sara was saying through her tears, it isn’t true. And her mother, who was crying too, picked her up and held her close, saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It is, it is, it is.
This was the memory that always replayed in her mind whenever she approached the Sanctuary, which seemed so much smaller to her than it had back then, so much more ordinary. An old brick schoolhouse with the name F. D. Roosevelt Elementary etched in stone over the door. From the path she could see the figure of a single Watcher standing on the top of the front steps: Hollis Wilson.
“Howdy, Sara.”
“Evening, Hollis.”
Hollis was balancing a crossbow on his hip. Sara didn’t like them; they had a lot of power but were too slow to reload, and heavy to carry besides. Everyone said how it was just about impossible to tell Hollis apart from his brother until he’d shaved his beard, but Sara didn’t see why; even as Littles—the Wilson brothers had come up three years ahead of her—she had always known which was which. It was the little things that told her, details that a person might not notice at first glance, like the fact that Hollis was just a little taller, a little more serious in the eyes. But they were obvious to her.
As she ascended the steps, Hollis tipped his head at the pot she was carrying, his lips turned up in a grin. “Whatcha bring me?”
“Jack stew. But it’s not for you, I’m afraid.”
His face was amazed. “I’ll be damned. Where’d you get him?”
“Upper Field.”
He gave a little whistle, shaking his head. Sara could read the hunger in his face. “I can’t tell you how much I miss jack stew. Can I smell it?”
She drew the cloth aside and opened the lid. Hollis bent to the pot and inhaled deeply through his nose.
“I couldn’t maybe talk you into leaving it here with me while you go inside?”
“Forget it, Hollis. I’m taking it to Elton.”
A jaunty shrug; the offer wasn’t serious. “Well, I tried,” said Hollis. “Okay, let’s have your blade.”
She withdrew her knife and passed it to him. Only Watchers were allowed to carry weapons into the Sanctuary, and even they were supposed to keep them out of sight of the children.
“Don’t know if you heard,” Hollis said, tucking it into his belt. “We’ve got a new resident.”
“I was out with the herd all day. Who is it?”
“Maus Patal. No big shock there, I guess.” Hollis gestured with his cross toward the path. “Galen just left. I’m surprised you didn’t see him.”
She’d been too lost in thought. Gale could have walked right past her and she wouldn’t have noticed. And Maus, pregnant. Why was she surprised?
“Well.” She managed a smile, wondering what she was feeling. Was it envy? “That’s great news.”
“Do me a favor and tell her that. You should have heard the two of them arguing. Probably woke up half the Littles.”
“She’s not happy about it?”
“It was more Galen, I think. I don’t know. You’re a girl, Sara. You tell me.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Hollis.”
He laughed wryly. She liked Hollis, his easy manner. “Just passing the time,” he said, and motioned with his head toward the door. “If Dora’s awake, tell her hi from her uncle Hollis.”
“How’s Leigh doing? With Arlo gone.”
“Leigh’s been down this road. I told her, lots of reasons they might not be back today.”
Inside, Sara left the stew in the empty office and went to the Big Room, where all the Littles slept. At one time it had been the school’s gymnasium. Most of the beds were empty; it had been years since the Sanctuary had operated at anything close to capacity. The shades were drawn over the room’s tall windows; the only illumination came from narrow slices of light that fell over the sleeping forms of the children. The room smelled like milk, and sweat, and sun-warmed hair: the smell of children, after a day. Sara crept between the rows of cots and cribs. Kat Curtis and Bart Fisher and Abe Phillips, Fanny Chou and her sisters Wanda and Susan, Timothy Molyneau and Beau Greenberg, whom everyone called “Bowow,” a mangling of his own name that had stuck to him like glue; the three J’s, Juliet Strauss and June Levine and Jane Ramirez, Rey’s youngest.
Sara came to a crib at the end of the last row: Dora Wilson, Leigh and Arlo’s girl. Leigh was sitting in a nursing chair beside her. New mothers were allowed to stay in the Sanctuary up to a year. Leigh was still a little heavy from her pregnancy; in the pale light of the room, her wide face seemed almost transparent, the skin pallid from so many months indoors. In her lap was a fat skein of yarn and a pair of needles. She lifted her eyes from her knitting at Sara’s approach.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
Sara acknowledged her with a silent nod and bent over the crib. Dora, wearing only a diaper, was sleeping on her back, her lips parted in a delicate O shape; she was snoring faintly through her nose. The soft, damp wind of her breathing brushed Sara’s cheekbones like a kiss. Looking at a sleeping baby, you could almost forget what the world was, she thought.
“Don’t worry, you won’t wake her.” Leigh yawned into her hand and resumed her knitting. “That one, she sleeps like the dead.”
Sara decided not to look for Mausami. Whatever was going on between her and Galen, it was none of her business. In a way she felt sorry for Gale. He had always had a thing for Maus—it was like an illness he could never quite shake off—and everyone said that when he’d asked Maus to pair with him, she’d said yes only because Theo had already refused her. That, or he’d never gotten around to asking, and Maus was trying to goad him into action. She’d hardly be the first woman who’d ever made that mistake.
But as she moved down the path, Sara wondered: Why couldn’t some things just be easy? Because it was the same with her and Peter. Sara loved him, she always had, even back when they were just Littles in the Sanctuary. There was no explaining it; as long as she could remember, she had felt it, this love, like an invisible golden thread that bound the two of them together. It was more than physical attraction; it was the broken thing inside him she loved most of all, the unreachable place where he kept his sadness. Because that was the thing about Peter Jaxon that nobody knew but her, because she loved him like she did: how terribly sad he was. And not just in the day-to-day, the ordinary sadness everyone carried for the things and people they had lost; his was something more. If she could find this sadness, Sara believed, and take it from him, then he would love her in return.
Which was the reason she had chosen to become a nurse; if she couldn’t be Watch—and she absolutely couldn’t—the Infirmary, where Prudence Jaxon presided, was the next best place to be. A hundred times she’d almost asked the woman: What can I do? What can I do to make your son love me? But in the end Sara had kept silent. She had gone about the work of learning her trade as best she could and waited for Peter, hoping he would know what she was offering him, simply by being in that room.
Peter had kissed her, once. Or maybe Sara had kissed him. The question of who had kissed whom, exactly, seemed unimportant in the face of the thing itself. They had kissed. It was First Night, late and cold. They’d all been drinking shine, listening to Arlo strum his guitar under the lights, and as the group dispersed in the last hour before dawn, Sara had found herself walking with Peter alone. She was a little lightheaded from the shine, but she didn’t think she was drunk, and she didn’t think that he was, either. A nervous silence fell over them as they moved down the path, not an absence of sound or speech but something palpable and faintly electric, like the spaces between the notes from Arlo’s guitar. It was in this bubble of expectancy that they walked together under the lights, not touching but connected nonetheless, and by the time they reached her house, neither one having acknowledged that this was their destination—the silence was a bubble but it was also a river, pulling them along in its current—there seemed no stopping what would happen next. They were against the wall of her house, standing in a wedge of shadow, first his mouth and then the rest of him pressed against her. Not like the kissing games they’d all played in the Sanctuary, or the first clumsy fumblings of puberty—sex was not discouraged, you pretty much got around to anyone you were even vaguely interested in; the unwritten rule was this and no more, all of it, in the end, feeling like a kind of rehearsal—but something deeper, full of promise. She felt herself enveloped by a warmth she almost didn’t recognize: the warmth of human contact, of truly being with another, no longer alone. She would have given herself to him right then, whatever he wanted.
But then it was over; suddenly he pulled away. “I’m sorry,” he managed, as if he believed she wished he hadn’t done it, though the kiss should have told him that she did, she did; but by then something had shifted in the air, the bubble had popped, and both of them were too embarrassed, too flustered, to say anything else. He left her at her door, and that was the end of it. They hadn’t been alone together since that night. They’d barely spoken a word.
Because she knew; she knew it when he kissed her, and then after, and more and more as the days went by. Peter wasn’t hers, could never be hers, because there was another. She’d felt it like a ghost between them, in his kiss. It all made sense now, a hopeless kind of sense. While she’d been waiting for him in the Infirmary, showing him what she was, he had been on the Wall with Alicia Donadio the entire time.
