The Line (21 page)

“Jab!” Pathik sounded angry. The pain in Rachel’s head vanished.

“It was only a nudge, Pathik.” Jab was standing about fifteen feet away, looking irritated. “I just wanted to see if it worked on Regs.”

“Never again, Jab.” Pathik’s voice was harsh. There was no hint of a smile on his face at that moment. “You know better. Leave her alone.” He sounded disgusted. “You and Kinec go get some wood for the fire.”

He turned back to Rachel, dismissing the two boys. “Sorry. It won’t happen again.” He looked worried.

“
What
won’t happen again?” Rachel didn’t like the look on Pathik’s face, or the look on Jab’s as he walked away with Kinec.

“We need to talk.” Pathik took one of the packaged blankets from her and ripped open a corner of it with his teeth. “Nice,” he said, inspecting the fabric. “This will keep you warmer than anything we have.” He unfolded it and laid it down on the ground, removing a rock that would have poked her in the back during the night. “Have a seat.” Pathik patted the blanket and settled himself on a corner of it. Rachel sat down next to him, wondering what was on his mind.

“You got a pain, here, right?” He touched his own temple where she had pressed her hand against hers. Rachel nodded. Pathik looked behind him to check on Jab and Kinec. They were picking up sticks, far enough away that they wouldn’t overhear the conversation. When he was satisfied they would be busy for a while he turned back to Rachel. “You know that thing?”

Rachel didn’t. She shrugged. When Pathik said nothing more, she raised her eyebrows at him. Finally she asked, “
What
thing?”

“That
thing
,” he said, as though she should know exactly what he was talking about. “You call it my . . . my sniffing thing.” He didn’t look happy about having to say that phrase out loud.

“Oh,
that
thing!” Rachel nodded again. “Right.”

“Well,” he said, “
we
call them gifts. Some of us have them right away, when we’re babies. Some of us get them later, when we’re little kids. If we get one, we’re named for it, either at birth, if it’s an obvious gift, or later, if our gift doesn’t show right away.” He looked at her to see if she understood. “Like Pathik—for empathic, you know.” He nodded back toward the other two boys. “Kinec,” he said “can make things move.”

Rachel must have looked skeptical because Pathik’s next words sounded a little defensive. “He
can
,” he said. “Not big things, at least not yet. But I’ve seen him make a pack jump.” Pathik got up and started gathering some twigs from the ground. “Jab,” he said, without looking at her, “can jab. He can make you hurt somewhere. That’s what he did to you just now.” He piled the twigs on the fire. The flames ate them greedily.

Rachel didn’t say anything. Pathik kept adding twigs and dry leaves to the fire. Maybe all those stories she had read about the Others—all the horrible things they were supposed to have done, things that seemed impossible for a person to do—were true.

Ms. Moore hadn’t said anything about weird powers, so maybe she didn’t know. Maybe Indigo had only told her part of the truth. Rachel thought about Pathik’s sniffing thing. It had seemed harmless when she was still safe on The Property. She hadn’t really believed him when he explained it anyway. But Jab—that had
hurt
. And here she was stuck with them, no way home, no way to fight back. She snuck a look at Pathik. He was looking right back at her, smiling a little smile.

“He won’t try it again,” Pathik said. “He’ll be punished for it when we get back to base camp too.” His smile disappeared and he looked very solemn. “We have rules about gifts. We’re very careful.”

“I don’t understand.” Rachel had so many questions she didn’t even know where to start. “
Why
do you
have
gifts?”

Pathik shrugged. “The bomb, I guess. That’s what most of the old-timers think. They tell the story still, about the early days. When the bomb went off, it did something to the people who were exposed to the radiation,
changed
something. For the first three years after the blast, the babies all died. Most were born dead; others lived a few days. During the fourth year, two babies lived. More lived each year after that. But as the babies grew, some of them could
do
things. Things like Jab can do, or Kinec. Or me. Things that Regs could never do. And that’s how it’s been for, well, forever.”

“What are Regs?”

Pathik looked embarrassed. “Regs are people like you. People who can’t do anything extra.”

“What about Indigo?” She had been thinking about what Pathik had said about names, about how the Others named their children for their gifts. Indigo didn’t sound like a name that meant anything giftlike. “What’s his gift?”

Pathik smiled again. “He says he never developed one. He was named for the color of his eyes, and he has kept that name his whole life.”

“Does that make him a Reg?”

Pathik looked indignant. “Of course not. Regs are only, well, only people who come from the other side.”

He sat down next to her again, but he didn’t look at her. “We
are
grateful to you, Rachel. Grateful for your help. It was brave of you to take the risk.” He twisted a twig between his fingers, shredding the bark.

“Are you afraid?” His eyes remained on the twig, and he asked the question so softly she almost couldn’t understand his words.

“Should I be?” Rachel looked at his face. She couldn’t see anything frightening there, but she was beginning to realize that she knew very little about the Others. Pathik looked up and caught her staring at him. He stared back, his expression unreadable.

“We’re not monsters.” He reached over and touched the back of her hand with the twig he held, a gentle tap. “No more than Regs are monsters.” He tossed the twig away and stood, held out his hand to help her up. “Let’s figure out what there is left to eat. We’ll need to get to sleep soon so we can start back early in the morning.”

That reminded Rachel of the food packets Ms. Moore had packed. She rummaged in the duffel bag and came up with two of them; cheese casserole and meatloaf. She showed them to Pathik, who laughed. “The boys will love those,” he said. “A change from dried rabbit.” He called to Kinec and Jab, who were heading back with the sticks they had gathered. They did love the food; even Jab seemed to approve of Rachel a bit more after he ate.

They spent most of the rest of the evening redistributing the items in the duffel bag between the three packs Pathik and the others had brought, so that they would each have only one pack on the trip back to base camp. They were all impressed with the thermal blankets. Jab sneered at the tools and the heater, muttering about the useless weight they would add to the packs. Rachel was perplexed by that until Pathik pointed to the batteries.

“They won’t be much good once those are used up,” he said, almost apologetically.

“Ms. Moore thought of that,” Rachel said. She took quite a bit of satisfaction from the look on Jab’s face when she pulled out the solar battery charger and explained how it worked.

Rachel kept the overnight bag Vivian had packed close to her. When she was getting her jacket from it earlier, she had seen the portfolio tucked into an inside pocket. She wanted to wait until she had some privacy to see everything her mom had put into the overnight bag. She hadn’t been paying close attention when Vivian was packing—she guessed she had been too overwhelmed by the prospect of actually Crossing. She hoped that Vivian had been thinking more clearly than she had.

 

 

AFTER THEY FINISHED organizing their packs, it wasn’t long until Kinec and Jab wrapped themselves in thermal blankets and got comfortable for the night. Pathik and Rachel stayed up, watching the fire die down to embers and talking in low voices. Rachel had found the letters from Ms. Moore in the duffel bag; one to her, one to Indigo, one to Pathik, and one to Malgam. She tucked hers away in her bag. She gave Pathik the letter Ms. Moore had addressed to him, along with the ones for Indigo and Malgam. “That’s your dad, right?” Rachel pointed to the envelope with Malgam’s name on it. Pathik looked surprised.

“I never told you my father’s name,” he said. “How do you know it?”

“Ms. Moore knew it.” Rachel watched him to see what his reaction would be. Did he know that Ms. Moore was his grandmother, or would he learn that when he read her letter? He didn’t say a word, but he did give her an odd look.

“What is your dad’s gift?” Rachel asked. “What does it stand for?”

“He says it means a mixture,” said Pathik. “A combination of elements. It was his birth name. I don’t think he has a gift.”

“Wouldn’t you know by now?”

Pathik shrugged.

“What was your birth name?”

Pathik chuckled. “I’ll never tell.

Rachel was tired, but she didn’t want to go to sleep yet. She had never slept outside. There were a lot of noises. She kept thinking about what the Others’ base camp would be like, wondering what was going to happen when they got there. She hoped Pathik would stay up with her for at least a little while longer.

“Do you want to see a digim of
my
dad?” Rachel opened her bag and found the portfolio. She took out the stack of digims her mom and she had looked at together so many times. On top was a picture from a long time ago. It showed her mom and dad sitting together in their old living room. It was taken right before she was born, and Vivian’s belly was huge. Vivian laughed every time she saw that digim. Rachel handed it to Pathik.

“That’s your mom, right?” Pathik smiled. “She looks nicer here than she did when she was dragging you away the other night.”

“She’s usually a lot nicer than that. You saw her at a bad moment.” Rachel started to tell him that the baby she was carrying in the digim was her, but his gasp silenced her.

“What?” Rachel looked around, trying to see what had alarmed him. “Did you hear something?”

Pathik was pointing at the digim he held. “Why,” he whispered, “do you have a picture of Daniel?”

 

 

THE FIRE WAS almost out now. It was so dark—the sky was clear, but there was just a sliver of moon. No other light. Pathik was asleep; Rachel could hear him breathing next to her. She didn’t think he had believed her when she told him the man in the digim was her dad. He just kept shaking his head, saying, “That’s Daniel.” He wouldn’t tell her how he knew him, or when he had seen him last, no matter how much she begged. Finally, he said she would have to speak to Indigo when they got to base camp. But he
knew
him. That meant that somewhere, somewhere
Away
, her dad was still alive. Or could be.

Four more days of hiking to get to the camp, that’s what Pathik said. Four more days and Rachel might find her dad. She stared at the glowing crescent of moon above her, wondering where she would be when it was full again.

THEY EACH KNOW WHY.

 

 

BEST AGENTS EVER.

 

 

EDITOR EXTRAORDINAIRE.

 

 

SO IMPRESSIVE.