"Two days to get there, one day to say my good-byes, and two days to get back," I told them. "I'll be gone for five days, that's all."
"A lot can happen in five days," said Aaron, but there was a sad resignation in his voice, because he knew I had made up my mind.
I planned to go on foot, but Aaron, as opposed as he was to it, had a better idea.
"If you go on foot, you could freeze to death. We don't have any clothes here warm enough to see you over the mountains. It's best if the monks take you."
"But don't they serve Abuelo? They'll never do it!"
He gave me a halfhearted grin. "The monks won't ever know they're taking you."
He explained how, once a week, a group of monks arrived on a hillside to the east to deliver supplies and take away the garbage that could not be composted.
On this particular week, I would be part of the garbage.
Harmony went to visit Abuelo that morning, to make sure he was distracted and his eyes weren't on the hillside as Aaron and I climbed out of the southern tip of the valley. I took off my gossamer gown and dressed in something more "earthly" for my journey, and Aaron brought along a burlap sack. Anyone who saw us making our way up the hillside would think we were just taking out the garbage.
This spot to the east and high up the hillside was the only place where mountains didn't rise too high to climb. Grass still grew there, but it wasn't as lush and green as it was lower in the valley. This grass had turned yellow, and spots were turning brown. As I looked back into the valley, I could see a thin rim of yellow grass that circled the entire valley of De León. I had never noticed it before. Aaron knelt down and rubbed his hands across the yellow grass, a look of worry on his face.
"This is a bad idea," he told me, in a last-ditch effort to change my mind. "No one in Flock's Rest deserves your good-byes."
"Wouldn't you have wanted to say good-bye to your parents?" I asked him.
"No," he said―but I could tell he wasn't sure if he meant it.
At the crest of the hill were a dozen sacks, like the one Aaron carried, all filled with the trash of De León.
"Five days," Aaron reminded me. "That's all you get." He opened his sack to show me that sewn to the inside were furry animal skins that, unfortunately, still had some of the animal attached. "I know it's not pretty," he said, "but it's the best I could do on such short notice. It'll keep you warm for the journey." It didn't look all that different from the bag of roadkill I had once carried out from my room.
"Thank you," I told him. It was all I could do not to lose my breakfast.
"You should wear a heavy winter coat when you come back," he told me. Then, looking around to make sure no one had followed us up, he gave me instructions for my return. "Be careful that no one from the outside world sees you. Come the way you did the first time―follow the path behind the old billboard."
"How far?" I asked. The night of my arrival had been such a blur, and I had passed out by the time the monks had found me. I had no idea how far De León was from civilization.
"Twenty miles," he said. "But it feels like a lot more because it's almost all mountains. As you get closer, you'll see the monastery on top of a hill, but whatever you do, don't go near it, because the monks won't know you're one of us if they see you. It's their duty to make sure no one from the outside ever finds us, and they take their job very seriously, if you know what I mean."
I nodded. These so-called monks sounded more like ninjas, but I kept my opinion to myself.
"Turn west at your first glimpse of the monastery," Aaron continued. "There's no path after that, but if you follow the setting sun, you'll come to De León. Good luck."
He hugged me tightly, like he had changed his mind and wasn't going to let me get into the sack.
"I'll be back before you know it. I promise."
"I don't think I'll sleep until you are."
I gave him a kiss that wasn't long enough for either of us, then I stepped into the fur-lined bag. Aaron covered me with trash, just in case the monks looked inside, then he tied the sack closed.
Only after I was tied into the bag and I couldn't see him did I hear him say: "I love you, Cara."
And then he was gone.
After he left, I sat there for hours, waiting for the monks to arrive, afraid to move the slightest bit in case they might be close enough to see. As I waited, I kept playing in my mind the last thing Harmony had said to me before she had hugged me goodbye and hurried off to Abuelo's that morning.
"Do not linger in the outside world," she had warned me. "Say your final good-byes quickly, and come home to us."
"What will happen if I stay too long?" I had asked. "Will I turn ugly again?"
"I don't know," Harmony had answered. "But I do know there are worse things than being ugly."
Part three
Cygnus Fatalis
18
Return to the flock
Traveling as garbage was not a highlight of my life, but sometimes you do what you have to do. The monks never knew I was there. I suppose I wasn't much heavier than what they were used to hauling. The fur around me kept me warm, but not warm enough. I shivered most of the way, and wondered if I would die of hypothermia and end up as part of the garbage after all. Trashes-to-ashes, I thought. It almost made me giggle, which, under the circumstances, would have been disastrous. The journey took a day and a half, and although they rested, I barely slept. I was hungry and, even more, thirsty. It was unbearable. Finally, toward the end of the second day, my bag was hurled into a hard, rough place, where I landed with a bruising crunch.
I let the pain peak, then fade, clenching my teeth so that I didn't make a sound. Then, when I was sure they were gone, I pulled myself out of the bag.
I was in a Dumpster. I stood up to get my bearings. I was out behind a gas station, and it was after dark. It was chilly, but nowhere near as cold as it had been in the higher altitudes as we crossed the mountains.
I climbed out and walked around to the front of the station, trying to stretch my cramped arms and legs. The second the gas-station attendant saw me, he swaggered over to me.
"Hey, little lady," he said. He was just a couple of years older than me, nineteen at the most. "What can I do you for?"
He was all goggly-eyed, and it took me a moment to realize he didn't see the Flock's Rest Monster when he looked at me. He saw someone beautiful. It amazed me that he didn't seem to notice I was covered in garbage.
"Which way to Flock's Rest?" I asked.
"No easy way to get there from here," he said. "That's clear over the mountains. The nearest road that crosses over is twenty-five miles away."
So the monks had taken me in the other direction. Well, that was just a minor inconvenience. I could still get there, and make it back, in time.
He smiled at me, showing me a cracked tooth, and tried to act all charming. "I get off in a couple of hours. I could give you a ride if you like. I know where it is; I was just there 'bout a month ago."
Something told me it wouldn't be a good idea. "No thanks," I told him, and he seemed a little hurt.
"Hey, I understand," he said. "A pretty girl like you―why would you take a ride from a guy like me? Right? 'Cept, of course, I got a really good car. Tiger-skin seats." He winked at me, and I rolled my eyes. Is this what pretty girls had to put up with all the time? "Runs like a dream," he said. "Just got it last month down at DeFido's. That's how come I know Flock's Rest."
I laughed at that. "If you got your car at DeFido's, then you got ripped off," I told him. "Trust me, I know. He's my father."