Page 85 of The Verdant Cage
Eero shakes his head, glancing enviously at Oscar. “No. None of us did, until today.”
I carefully pull Oscar’s shirt down—the balm will keep it from fusing to his flesh—and move on to Eero. When I finish with him, I indicate Sal is next, but she gestures toward Meryl instead.
“The poison Uncle Richard referred to,” I say, “the one my mother confronted Jarek about? It does repel the plant. I saw it with my own eyes when it attacked in the quarantined area. But it’s poisonous to humans, too.”
Meryl’s head whips around, causing her to grimace at the pain. “The quarantined area? Holy Wall…it’s the Vex, isn’t it? They were trying to destroy the plant and killed villagers instead.”
I nod, impressed with her quick thinking. These four deserve to know as much as I do. Should I also share my plan to save Jonas? Even despite what we’ve been through, it’s hard for me to trust them. I remember what Augustus said, though.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
“I’m going up the Wall on Friday.” The words start out tentative and then pour out in a rush. “To save Jonas. When I come back down—ifI come back down—I want Jarek Harvested. With him out of the way, we can figure out as a village how to move forward.”
“You want to get Jarek Harvested…” Sal trails off, incredulous. “And how exactly do you plan to do that? Bat your mom’s eyelashes and ask him nicely to get in the basket?”
Meryl lightly smacks Salvatora on the arm, but Sal’s right. It does sound unlikely, when she puts it like that. “I figure he’ll have no choice if everyone learns what he’s been hiding from them,” I offer weakly.
“They won’t believe you. Not over the man whose orders they’ve been following for so long,” Sal says. She watches me finish applying balm to Meryl and then sighs with relief as I begin treating her back.
“Sal’s right,” Meryl says apologetically. “Maybe if we’d stood up to Jarek right away, we’d have had a fighting chance. But he’s trained us to lose a little bit of freedom, day by day. People are ready to follow him to the death now. It’s that, or admit what they’ve allowed him to get away with.”
“We’re losing sight of the real issue,” Oscar chimes in.
“Which is?” I ask.
Oscar glances at the floor before drawing a circle in the dust that’s accumulated in the corner. “This is Noah’s Valley,” he says, pointing at it. “We’ve lived here peacefully for what, over a hundred years?”
I bite my tongue to keep from saying the exact number: 120. We all nod.
“Sure, the Valley needs improvements. But we didn’t have problems likethis”—he gestures to his own swollen back—“until Jarek got a taste for power. And items from Beyond, it sounds like.”
I blink at his circle, feeling stupid. “What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying we wreck the Harvest basket, the tablet, and whatever explosives he plans to use to break open the Wall,” Oscar says, dropping back on his heels. “Ensure thereisno going Beyond,ever. With the temptation gone, Jarek should be easier to get back in line.”
Eero shakes his head. “The Engineer House will just make more explosives.”
“No,” I say, finally hopeful. “Gryphon was clear we don’t have the materials inside the Wall to recreate them.” I add the next part slowly. It’ssoimportant they understand. “I think it’s a great idea to get rid of Jarek’s stash. But if we destroy the tablet and the basket, Jonas will be trapped atop the Wall forever.”
Oscar’s expression tells me everything he won’t say. The same knowledge is reflected in Sal, Eero, and Meryl’s faces. They believe my twin is dead.
“I’m sorry,” Meryl says, her expression miserable. “But I think Oscar’s spot-on. We can’t risk Jarek ever having access to the outside world. We don’t know what horrors might follow him back in. And it’s not like we can continue with the Harvests, now that there might be something up there…attacking those who are honored. The only way to guarantee our safety is to destroy the weaponsandthe tablet. Once those are gone, we can tell the villagers about the poison and show them the threat at Eden’s Gate. Together, we can figure out how to fight it. Right?”
She holds out a hand. Sal slides hers on top, then Oscar, then Eero, and lastly, reluctantly, me.
I make the deal because I know they’re right. The Founders’ stash in the vault started all of this, simple greed eroding decades of community. If it’s not Jarek trying to blow a hole in the Wall, now that those inside have a taste for the Beyond, it’ll be someone else. We must permanently destroy their access to such dangers.
My friends don’t need to know that I’ll be up the Wall with my brother by the time they do.
53
I manage to scrape out a few hours of sleep on the chilly basement floor, all of it threaded with nightmares. Jonas screaming for help, his face contorted with terror. Gran being ferried up in the basket and abandoned like a sacrifice for the green monster. Gryphon and Marina kissing, stopping only long enough to laugh and point at me. Every one of my teeth falling out.
I wake in a start after each, squeeze Lucky Bunny, whisper to him that everything’s going to be all right. The new plan is not so very different from the previous one, I let him know. I never believed I could sneak back down the Wall with Jonas, not really. Heaven is a one-way trip—I know that.
I also know that if there’s even the slimmest possibility that my twin is alive up there, huddled and hiding, I can’t go on living without trying to save him. If I can manage it, I’ll take some explosives to drop down on the vine monster—the Beast, as I’ve come to think of it—so even if I don’t make it back, I can protect those within.
Finally, a plan lets me sleep soundly.
