Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (36 page)

Tomorrow there would only be twenty more days, but he wasn’t counting because it no longer concerned him. Cottonwood would no longer be held above his head as a weapon against him. Empty threats and empty words. He felt bad about Bad Dog, sure. About SIRS. But they would protect each other, even if they acted like they hated each other.

He didn’t feel bad about Lucas. He should have killed Lucas when he had the chance. Surely it would have cost him nothing. It was a thing of bees and rubber bands, a scrape of knife and kiss.

“You should have,” she said. “What’s a little more blood on your hands?”

He looked up. Ahead stood a tree.

Her
tree.

No
, he thought.
No. I’m not here. I’m
miles
from here. I am so far away from here that it is nothing but dust and memory. That is all it is.

She hummed as she danced. Her leaves shook a little, and snow drifted toward her dress. He was reminded of the first time he’d seen her dance, as he always was when he came here (because he
was
here, after all). It was on the seventeenth day he’d known her, and he remembered thinking that he no longer felt the pull to leave. The wanderlust had died. Elko seemed as good a place as any. There was her smile. That helped too. He’d been a young man but old in his heart even then.

And when a quartet began to play that one spring eve, plucking their strings for all they were worth, she’d laughed and clasped her hands together and
danced
. She
danced
, her pretty blue dress spinning out around her, and Cavalo had watched her, feeling the sweat under his arms, the smell of grass and flowers and smoke stinging his nose. He thought to himself,
Well, that’s just fine
, and she danced, and soon he was dancing with her, and he’d smiled for the first time since he could remember. He thought his face might crack at the strain of it. And later that night, when he took her for the first time, she’d called out his name like he was something more than he was. More than a lost soul. More than a murderer. More than the darkness in head and heart. She called out as if he’d
mattered
, as if he was there, actually there and that he
mattered
. He remembered shaking above her as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and she said
more
and he said
oh
, and they both closed their eyes, and in that dark there were such bright lights. He told himself that he could change. That he could be different. That he could be something more.

“You told me,” the tree said.

He nodded, unable to look away. The horror of this, of his whole life and where it had led to, caused his throat to constrict.

“When we’d finished,” she said, “when we lay in the dark and whispered about nothing and everything, you told me your name.”

He had. It’d come out on its own. He’d wanted to take it back, but only just.

“You gave it to me,” she said.

“Yes.”

“As a gift.”

“Yes.” A piss-poor one, at that.

She laughed, and her bare branches rattled like bones. It grated against his ears. “I took it for what it was,” she said.

“What was it?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

“It was all you had to give,” the tree-wife told him. “It was all you had to give, and I took it. That’s when you killed me, Cavalo. I may not have died right then, but that is surely when you sentenced me to death.”

“I would take it all back,” he said. “If I could.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“Now?” he asked.

“The scrape of knife and kiss.”

He took a step back as if she’d struck out at him.

She laughed again. It sounded angry. “He is death.”

“Yes.”

“Psycho fucking bulldog.”

“Yes.”

“You should have killed him.” Her branches clicked together.

“Yes.”

“You still could.”

“Yes.”

“His head,” the tree-wife said. “You could leave it on the southern road for them to find. Just like they did to Warren. You can—”

“—catch me and Mr. Fluff!” Jamie called out from somewhere in the forest. “Hi, Daddy! Come find me! You gotta catch me! You know—”

“—it wasn’t him,” Warren said near Cavalo’s ear. “You know as well as I do. He’s not the same. He smells different. You know this, Cavalo. You need to open your eyes and brush away the bees. You need to
see
. I screamed for you when they began to eat me, and you didn’t hear. That’s okay, you saw me second, you know it was—”

“—the coyotes,” the lost girl said from above him, lost in the snow globe. “I couldn’t take their toenails scratching at the door and even when they huffed and puffed, I just couldn’t
stand
the noise. I closed my eyes, and I screamed for my mother as I opened the door, and as they began to attack me, I remember thinking how I couldn’t even feel my bad foot anymore, and I don’t know why—”

“—you shot me,” David said from behind him. Cavalo turned, but no matter where he looked, the voice was always behind him. “You said I was stealing from you, but how sure are you of that, Cavalo? Just how sure are you, bud? We fucked, and you say it wasn’t love. Maybe it wasn’t for you, but after you’d go to sleep, I’d watch you for hours and wish you’d wake up and see me,
really see me
, and even if you never did, you can—”

“—do to them what they did to you,” the tree-wife said. “Kill him, and when they come to seek their revenge, leave Cottonwood to its fate because it will
never
be held over you again. It will
never
be used against you, and you will be rid of all of this, and you can go back to your prison and hide away for the rest of your days. Or you can stay here with me, and we will dance until we can dance no more.”

As the snow fell around him in the middle of the haunted woods, the man named Cavalo bowed his head as the ghosts he did not believe in whispered their poison in his ears. After a time, they began to sound like bees.

IT WAS
near dawn before he made it back to the prison. The leaden sky above was just beginning to lighten through the snow.

The robot waited for him in the doorway. “Cavalo,” SIRS said. “We worried.”

Cavalo grunted as the robot moved so he could pass. He was cold.

“Where did you go?”

“Away.”

“And you came back.”

“Is that a question?”

“Statement of fact,” SIRS said, following Cavalo into the barracks. “Your hand.”

Cavalo stopped but did not turn.

“I’m sorry,” the robot said.

“Are you?”

“Quite.”

“You let him in.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“My directive was overridden.”

“How?”

The robot hesitated. “I… a command key. Set phrases embedded into my coding.”

“And he knew them.”

“Yes.”

“What are they?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. It was like… a dream. Do you dream, Cavalo?”

Cavalo didn’t respond.

“I did,” the robot said. “It was a most curious and awful thing. Like drowning and knowing I was drowning but unable to do a single thing to stop it. I tried to break through the surface, but it was too strong. I could understand what was happening.”

“Who is he?”

“Patrick?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know, Cavalo.”

“Are you his?” There was rage in his voice.

SIRS stepped back. “No. I….” He stopped. Clicked. Blared out, “On hearing these words whispered very softly, the puppet, more frightened than ever, sprang down from the back of his donkey and went and took hold of his mouth!” Clicked again. Gears ground together. “It’s a failsafe.” He sounded sad.

“Against?”

“Insanity,” SIRS said. “My makers feared one day we might degrade and no longer follow orders. They created a failsafe that overrides our processors.”

“We?”

“Others like me, Cavalo. Robots.”

“And Patrick knew about it.”

“It would seem so.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, Cavalo.”

Cavalo turned and looked up at the robot. “You’re not his?” he asked quietly.

The robot did not turn away. “No,” Sentient Integrated Response System said. “If anything, I’m yours.”

Cavalo didn’t know how to respond. Instead, he said, “Where is he?”

“Lucas?”

“Yes.”

“Sleeping,” the robot said. “In the cell.”

Cavalo didn’t question this. It would make easier what was about to come. “Bad Dog?”

“Your bed. He was very worried. The fleabag tried to chase after you. I kept him here. I think he might have disliked that greatly, if the snarling and growling was any indication. I was okay with not being able to hear him like you do at that moment. I doubt highly anything said was flattering.”

Cavalo glanced toward the door to the beds. It was closed. He would see Bad Dog later. “Stay here,” he said. “Whatever happens, you do nothing until I say. You understand?”

“Yes, Cavalo.”

“Open the tunnel.”

“Your hand,” SIRS said.

“It’s fine.”

“I didn’t….”

“Open the tunnel door.”

“Cavalo?”

“What?” Cavalo barked at the robot.

“Are you sure? Perhaps we can think on this and—”

“Now, SIRS.”

A panel lit up against the wall as SIRS pressed his hand against it. The door to the tunnel slid open. Cavalo went to his discarded pack in the corner and opened a pocket on the side. He pulled out his skinning knife. The handle had long since faded, and he could barely make out the word MOSSBERG etched on the blade itself. He’d traded for it years before. He knew how quickly it cut. His right hand would be no good for this, given his broken fingers. But he’d trained himself on his left too. Just in case.

He turned back toward the stairs leading to the tunnel below. He reached the first, and for a moment, the bees were so loud in his head he thought he’d burst. They sounded like the dead. Like the trees. He pushed them away.

“Cavalo,” SIRS said.

He stopped.

“I tried to stop it,” the robot said. “I tried to stop from hurting you.”

“I know.”

“You are my friend.”

“I know.”

“Even if I’m not a real boy.”

“Have you ever lied to me?” Cavalo asked him suddenly.

The robot clicked and beeped. Then, “His hands and feet are everywhere. He looks everywhere and all around. His eyes, ears, and face point to all directions, and all the three worlds are surrounded by these.” He stopped. His eyes flashed. “If I have,” SIRS said, “it is only because of my desire to keep you safe.”

“Robots can’t desire anything,” Cavalo said, though he knew it a lie.

“No,” SIRS said. “But it is there. Curious thing, that. If the world had not ended in fire, it would have undoubtedly ended in machines. It has taken losing my mind to find my soul.”

Cavalo descended the stairs, his breath harsh in his ears.

The tunnel was cold.

Water dripped down the walls.

The knife felt hot in his hand.

There was poison in his ears, and the bees swam in it.

Warren was there. He didn’t speak.

Jamie called from him in the stone walls.

She
laughed, and it sounded like leaves.

He could end this now, he knew.

He tightened his grip on the knife.

He would follow the path of the scar. It was a map made just for him.

The man named Cavalo walked alone, but the voices followed.

He ascended the stairs.

The lights above did not flicker.

The room was quiet.

Lucas slept in the cage of man and God, curled into a blanket. He lay on his side, neck exposed. The scar looked hideous in the light.

It would have to be quick, Cavalo knew. He was Lucas, but he was also Psycho, and if he awoke, the element of surprise would be gone.

Knees to arms. Hand to hold down face. Knife to throat, right to left.

Nothing more than a scrape of knife and it would be done.

He stood above the sleeping Dead Rabbit.

He hesitated.

He was very tired. He would sleep. After.

He dropped onto the Dead Rabbit’s chest, pinning his arms at his sides.

He reached up with his right hand and held the Dead Rabbit’s face. His broken fingers screamed at him. He paid them no mind.

Lucas opened his eyes. They were dark and deep.

The knife went to his throat. He did not struggle.

Instead he smiled around Cavalo’s fingers digging into his skin. All those teeth.

I knew you would come
, he said.

“How?”

Because we’re the same.

“I’m saving you,” Cavalo told him. “From Patrick.”

The grin widened.
Are you?

“Yes.”

I don’t believe you.

“Remember when I pressed the gun to your head?”

In the woods.

“Yes. You wanted it. I failed you then. I won’t fail you now.”

It won’t matter. He’ll kill you all.

He pressed the knife down. The scar tissue dimpled and parted. A small rivulet of blood ran along the edge of the knife.

Somewhere, the tree-wife laughed.

“Why?” Cavalo asked.

Lucas blew his lips together.
We’re all made of bees. Yours are loud now.

“We were fine,” Cavalo said. “Until you came.”

Were you?

“Yes.”

Here. In this place.

“Yes.”

It wouldn’t have lasted. Nothing ever does.

“It would have been enough,” Cavalo said hoarsely.

The smile on Lucas’s face faded.

Do it now
, the bees said.

Cavalo’s arm tensed. Lucas did not struggle.

Instead, for the first time, he mouthed a single word.

“Cavalo.”

He wondered if he’d ever seen Lucas form actual words with his mouth. He thought not. Anytime they’d spoken, it’d been through the Dead Rabbit’s expressions and motions. Or Cavalo had just made it all up. He wasn’t sure anymore.