“I used to hold your hands like this when you were little. One hand for Lucy, one hand for Ethan. Ethan always pulled forward, so eager to get wherever we were going, and Lucy never pulled. She would hold my hand until I let go first.” Maxine closed her eyes.
“Mom—” Ethan started, but she silenced him.
“You will allow me this. I have earned my right to tell you exactly what I think. Whether you listen or not, I have earned that much. If you leave this place, you will leave me broken, it will leave us broken...”
“You’re leaving?”
They all turned to the left. Galen stood shivering in a flimsy pair of shorts and his Beatles t-shirt. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked at his sister and brother, and then his mother, with his eyes narrowed. He looked on the verge of tears, his bottom lip quivering.
“You can’t do that,” Galen said when no one answered him. “You can’t. That’s not fair.”
Maxine rushed to Galen and put an arm around his shoulder, but he shrugged her off and ran back downstairs. They watched him go, unable to stop him, unsure of what to call after him.
Lucy and Ethan exchanged a look. It was Lucy who spoke. “No one can know that it’s a possibility. Not even Galen...we’ll have to talk to him.”
Ethan nodded with authority. “Huck will come after anyone who leaves...escaping serves no purpose if we spend our entire lives being hunted.”
“Our?” Lucy repeated. “Ethan...”
“Lucy,” Ethan said. “You may not know what the future holds for you...and that’s okay. But I’m getting out of this place. I’m going with Grant...I’m taking Teddy to Darla. I’m going to see Ainsley…to my friends. That’s where I belong.”
Maxine took a step back toward her children and she watched them without interrupting.
“Mom...” he continued. “I...”
She put both her hands up and tried to get him to stop. “No,” she said from several feet away. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“I’m working on a plan...I have some ideas,” Ethan said, turning his attention back to the task at hand. “Things that would assure us a clean break. They aren’t foolproof, but they would buy us a chance to escape without a trace.”
Then, as if it was slowly dawning on him, Grant frowned. “So, then, wait. The only way we get off Kymberlin safely...would be...”
They turned to look at him. “If they think you’re dead,” Lucy finished.
From downstairs they heard a door slam and then the sounds of the other kids roused from sleep. Time was running out to discuss the plan freely. In that moment, as Lucy looked around the room at the worn and anxious faces, she saw the reality of their actions. Broken, her mother had said. Escaping Kymberlin would leave her broken, bereft.
“Mom.” Lucy walked over to her mother and buried her head into her chest. “You should leave. You know this place isn’t safe...don’t stay here...”
“I have to stay,” Maxine replied. “It’s not easy for me to let Ethan go, but there are the little ones to think of. Lucy, I can’t. This is a decision you have to make without me by your side. No matter which choice you make, there will be goodbyes.” Her mother turned from her, unable to say more.
Her mind wandered to Cass’s Guedeh card that day in the fortune teller booth back in the System. The card had not told her which heartache she would choose, but one thing was certain: the cost was high. How could she walk away, forever, from the family she had fought to find?
It already felt like their funeral. A deep and sudden sadness enshrouded them as they left the confines of the King house and ventured out into Kymberlin tower. Ethan, Grant, and Lucy walked in silence. It wasn’t the awkward silence of people unable to strike up any semblance of a conversation, but the deep and penetrating silence of people who knew that whatever they said would be wrong.
When they reached the elevator, Ethan hesitated.
“I’ll meet up with you two later,” he said and started off toward the sky bridge. Lucy knew where he was headed.
“Wait,” Lucy said, she hopped to catch up. “Will you tell her?”
“Should I?”
Lucy shrugged. “Would she come with us?”
Ethan shook his head. “No.” He scratched at his cheek. “I think she likes it here. She can live with a foot in both worlds. Cass knows what she’s doing, Lucy... on Kymberlin, she’ll always have everything she wants. The thing about Cass is that she plays well in this world. She moves fluidly between everyone, and the outside world has no draw for her...”
“But she won’t have you,” Lucy said, baiting him.
“She never had me,” Ethan replied lowering his chin. “It wasn’t like that.”
“You definitely have a type,” Lucy teased. “Cass was too smart for you.” She felt Grant at her elbow and she turned. “So,” she looked back at her brother, “you’re not telling her?”
“I’m not,” Ethan replied. “It’s better that way. Safer for her.” Then he added, “But I want to make sure I see her again...she was good to me, Lucy. She was a good friend…and I needed a friend.”
“I know,” Lucy replied and she smiled sadly.
He left them standing there and walked off toward Cass. Lucy knew that Ethan must have a plan, but she didn’t want to push for details. The moving pieces of an escape were beyond Lucy’s imagining. At the moment, all she knew is that it had to happen. And that it would have to be final. Once off Kymberlin, they were off forever. Beyond that: nothing. Crickets and cobwebs, and daring ideas cut short by logic and logistics.
“Come on,” said Grant. “Take me somewhere cool. I need to get out of my head for a minute. I don’t know if I can handle another second of dwelling on what’s going to happen next. I just need someplace…for us.”
Lucy knew just the place.
Everything was there. Every song ever recorded, every album ever released. Mozart to Michael Jackson; Etta James, the B52s, and Neutral Milk Hotel. Every genre across the decades, organized into various categories, and available within seconds. Lucy walked Grant over to the soundproof booth and sat him down on the cushioned seat. Then she shut the door and smiled. Slipping into the booth next to him, she could see Grant’s head against the neighboring glass. The world was silent—everything outside had disappeared. The din of people talking, the echo of voices up and down the floors, the buzz of the elevators carrying people about their day.
She didn’t want to listen to music. She just wanted to listen to the empty, shallow sound of nothingness.
But Grant had quickly gotten to work pushing the computer screen into action, dialing up artists and songs. While Lucy couldn’t hear what was going on in his booth, she could see Grant’s fingers swiping through categories, adding songs to his playlist, his head bopping along to something upbeat.
He turned and looked at her and broke into a grin. From beyond the glass, he broke into song: He closed his eyes and crooned upward, a mighty grin on his face. Lucy just watched him, giggling. Filled with inspiration, Grant darted out of his booth. She tried to see where he went, and then he reappeared holding a pen and several sheets of white paper. He scribbled.
Good thinking, he wrote, pushing the paper to the glass.
She bowed and broke into a grin.
When he turned back to the screen, she popped her head out. It was disorienting to suddenly hear the sounds of life.
“Excuse me?” she called. “Hello?”