The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [92]
It’s silent as Ox wipes his bloody hand over the maps, smearing red across the Forest. I drop my arm to my side, the flat of the machete resting against my knee.
My throat feels tight, making the air in the room that much harder to breathe. “What did you do to him?” My voice cracks.
Ox looks at me hard, his eyes slightly narrowed. “We scraped him up and tossed him in a cage. And then we put his dear old mother in with him.”
Even though my stomach lurches at his words, I only clench my teeth—I won’t give him the satisfaction of a response. He smiles all the same and then leaves me alone to stare at the bloody maps, trying to figure out what to do next.
The next morning I wake up to find a package sitting in the chair by the window. It’s wrapped in a worn woven cloth. I look around the room, wondering who was here. The air is freezing and I tug a quilt around me as I climb from bed and pull the bundle into my lap, unwrapping it.
Folded inside is a thick wool coat that looks like it’s never been worn before. An intricate pattern is stitched around the edges and I run my finger over it. There’s something else tucked inside and I pull free a brightly knit scarf and a matching knit hat. The material of both is so thick and soft that I can’t help pressing my face against them, feeling the soft woolen hairs brush my cheeks.
It’s too perfect a gift. I look up to find my sister nudging open the door to my room. She sees me clutching the bundle in my hands.
“Was this you?” I ask, wondering how she could have ever pulled it off. I never saw her knitting and don’t know where she could have found such amazing materials.
She smiles, eyes bright, and shakes her head. “It was Catcher. He came by in the night and said a woman in the Dark City begged for a way to repay him for bringing her food and keeping her alive. He thought you’d want something.” She waves toward my closely cropped hair.
I put on the hat, pulling it down over my ears and luxuriating in the sensation of soft warmth.
“He brought me something as well.” She holds out a thick book. I take it from her, running my fingers over the cracked plastic that once protected the cover. I flip through pages of diagrams of buildings and structures that make no sense.
“Architecture,” she says, unable to hide the excitement in her voice. “It’s about building things.” She takes the book from me and sits on the bed, feet tucked underneath her. “I’ve always wanted to build things and he remembered.”
I wrap the scarf around my arms, lift the edge of it to my nose as if I could still catch a trace of Catcher. “He’s thoughtful like that.” I wonder how he found these things. How long he must have searched. I wonder why he didn’t wake me up. Why he didn’t say anything to me. I think about him sneaking into my room in the night, of me asleep and never knowing.
He was right here, could have stood at the end of my bed, and he said nothing. It’s clear he’s avoiding me. I pull the coat on, huddling into the heavy folds as if they could protect me from these feelings.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” she says, swiping at my shoulder. “Finish getting dressed—meet me on the roof! We can see how warm that keeps you.”
I’d planned on exploring more of the buildings on this end of the island again, hoping that we missed something in one of the basements. That maybe there’s an entrance to the tunnels after all.
I slide from bed and walk to the window. As if she senses my hesitation my sister comes to stand next to me. Beyond the river the Neverlands smolder and the Dark City lies gray and dormant. Dead continue to spill through the streets. They flounder from the docks into the water and eventually will wash ashore on the Sanctuary island.
“Where do you think they’re housing the Soulers?” I ask, staring at the wall and wondering how many Sweepers were just on the other side last night, protecting us and getting nothing in return.
“I don’t know,”