Page 102 of The Verdant Cage
The crowd shuffles uncomfortably, and Reatha approaches the stage. She talks as she walks, her voice as loud as she can make it. “I took my family into hiding after Jarek had me create the poison we call the Vex.” Gasps ring out from the villagers. “That’s right! The Vex isn’t an illness but an herbicide. Jarek used it against you. And he bewitched my own son into helping him!”
I glance back to David, who’s staring at the ground, looking for all the world like a harmless, bookish man. Only I am close enough to see the smirk beneath his mustache. He really is a puppeteer.
“I believe he means to explore the Beyond,” Reatha is saying, “opening us up to untold dangers.” The throng glances from her to Jarek and then David, uneasy. A baby’s cry splits the air. Still, Jarek remains quiet. I can’t believe it. Why is he letting her rouse the people against him? Even Misia appears shocked by his silence.
Reatha has reached the stage. She peers up, her eyes beseeching me. “I’m so sorry, Rose. Your mother warned me about how dangerous Jarek is. He made terrible threats against your father, and shortly after, Kirby was dead. I believe Jarek killed him. That’s why I agreed to make the poison, until I learned what it was being used for. That’s when I took my two children and hid. I told myself I was doing it to protect the village, but really, I was scared Jarek would Harvest Albert or Marie, just like he Harvests the family of anyone who stands up to him.”
She turns back to the audience. “It’s true,” she screams. “Look around! You let him take others in the hope that he won’t take you. You know Jarek is culling our herd, but you don’t object. You’ve forgotten yourself. You’ve forgotten your community.” She points toward the Wall. “And now, he’s going to breach our only protection. He intends to let the outside in. Raiders, creatures, the Sun and Water knows what else. And for what?”
“For evolution,” Jarek declares. His voice is loud but unnervingly calm. Have he and David planned for this, too? “That’s the only reason to open the Wall.”
His announcement is so shocking that the entire village goes quiet.
Jarek continues. “The Record Keepers and the Guardians have seen the Before Times items Rose and her mother discovered. You’ll understand when you see them, too. Tools that will make your life easier. Carpenter House, would you not like a sun-powered drill? Blacksmiths, what about a handheld welding torch? There is food, too, entire shelves of delicacies that melt on your tongue and fill your bellies. Weapons that can protect us from the wildest beast. And there is surely all of that and more waiting for us Beyond, if we can just go outside and take it.” He pauses, breathes for emphasis. “We must allow the future in.”
So that’s their game. They mean to pass blame to me, to act like now that I’ve discovered goods from Beyond, there’s no turning back. This is the natural order of things, so we may as well make the best of it. Based on the way the crowd is nodding, vacant eyes reflecting the setting sun, it’s working. Jarek and David are going to win. They’re going to get everything they want. Greed has replaced community.
“Guardians,” Jarek says, “pass out the rancher candy we discovered in Rose’s stash.”
Some of his troops move through the crowd, offering the sweets to the starved villagers as Jarek goes on. “Rose’s mother made a mistake by hiding what she’d found from us and hoarding it, but she did us a favor by discovering it in the first place. Now we know what’s possible.” He turns to face me, tilting his head in a mockery of compassion. “She loved you, Rose.”
“She was murdered!” Reatha yells. “Because she threatened Jarek’s master plan.” She turns back to the gathered villagers. “People of Noah’s Valley, we cannot let him do the same to anyone else! It’s time to act. Starting now, we must—”
She drops in mid-sentence, a mother-of-pearl-handled dagger quivering in her spine, buried to its hilt.
“Reatha is also a traitor,” Jarek tells the crowd, staring at the knife he’s just thrown.
I moan and sag against Gryphon, unable to believe my eyes. David exits the stage. Albert appears, maneuvering his wheelchair through the stunned crowd to his mother’s side. He stares down at her, stricken.
“Now!” Lozen yells.
She cuts Meryl, Eero, and Oscar free just as a handful of villagers, led by Augustus and armed with little more than their courage, rush at the nearest Guardians. Eero’s parents, Zaha and Aldo of the Carpenter House, are fighting with their bare hands, their years of hard work and labor paying off in the form of powerful swipes and kicks. Near them, Oscar’s father, Dale, of the Tailor House leaps on the back of a Guardian, surprising her with his ferocity. Augustus is cutting through a swath of them, swinging a metal pipe. The Guardians are caught unawares, and many of them seem reluctant to fight their fellow citizens, some of whom used to be family.
Jarek moves to the edge of the stage to watch it all coolly, Misia by his side. The battle below is chaotic and brutal, with the thud of fists on flesh and the screams of the wounded filling the air along with the smell of sweat and fear, Guardians against villagers. I think, unwillingly, to our ancestors.Were we always going to turn out like this?I dive toward the stairs, but my shackles take me down. I try to right myself. Gryphon is by my side, a key in his hand.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“War.” His stricken expression shocks me. “I’ve been preparing for this my whole life, but I didn’t know we’d be battling each other.”
He undoes the shackles at my wrists. How did he get the key from his mother? I rub at my bloodied skin as the cuffs fall to the stage, their clank lost in the angry cries of the raging fight. Do we stand a chance? I feel a spark of hope, and it’s terrifying. Giving up had been so much easier.
Sal appears out of nowhere, jumping between me and Gryphon.
“It’s now or never, Rose,” she cries, holding out the detonator.
The explosives! I glance over at Jarek and Misia. They see nothing beyond the fight in front of them. Sal pushes my thumb into the depression at the same time as hers. I have only a millisecond to worry that we’re too far away from the weapons barn when a far-off explosion echoes with such force that it knocks me off my feet.
All right, I see why they make those things so hard to set off.
Gryphon helps me up.
I hear a whoop and realize it’s Lozen, who’s fighting Tomris just in front of the stage. “Guess I was wrong about their range!” she calls out before sliding between the older Guardian’s legs. She springs up, knocking her opponent at the base of the neck with her sword hilt. Tomris drops like a sack of beets, and Lozen dives to shove a Guardian off another villager.
She’s doing her part, but Jarek’s training is paying off. The rest of his Guardians are forming organized pockets, forcing the villagers nearest them to kneel. Anyone who doesn’t is knocked unconscious or worse. I think I see a Guardian run his blade through the Blacksmith’s son. My earlier burst of hope is replaced by horror. The rebel villagers—those who’ve already lost too much—are fighting with everything they have, but there simply aren’t enough of them. Jarek’s army is too well-trained, their blades too sharp.
The uprising, if it had been that, is being quelled. Efficiently.
Jarek must realize it as the same time as me. He turns, his face lit with an ugly, gloating satisfaction that morphs to rage when he sees that Gryphon has knelt to unlock the manacles around my ankles. Gryphon has his back to his father and so doesn’t see him approach, and there isn’t time to warn him. I rip the dagger from Gryphon’s belt and aim it, heart pounding, hand trembling. For a split second, I hesitate—I’ve never taken a life—but then I fling it. Jarek dives to the side just as the blade leaves my fingers, and it sails wide, clattering uselessly to the ground below.
