To the Well-Organized Mind

Chapter Seventeen

[Fen]

We went out to the Barrens together, but for different reasons. I went there to die. He went there to live.

He thought we could find a way across, find a better life somewhere less decimated by the climate change weather and rising tides.

I only agreed to go with because I was certain we wouldn't.

And the joke was on me: he succumbed to death a week in, while I continue to persist.

-Fen

*

Walking the perimeter of Asis takes around an hour. I've done it enough to have the timing down to an art. Pass that broken stump when the sun rises above the treeline. Reach the far end of the fields by the time the birds have stopped their morning songs. Pause by the broken fence to peer out and wonder if it would hold if it needed to. Trail my fingers along the old cars that have no fuel to run and now just make up a layer of wall. Fight the disappointment that rises when the houses come into view after the final bend.

Ten times a day, my feet force my mandatory march. Two nights spent in Asis, and already, I have begun asking what kind of tasks or work take one out of the fenced safety.

I have pinpointed why the stillness, the easiness devours me. I have altogether too much time to think. And there are many shameful thoughts that have waited for this moment of rest to resurface.

So when I turn up at Asis's gate for the fourth time, lingering like a prisoner trying to plan a break, the guard on duty stops trying to talk to me to pass the time and instead squints at me.

"Why do you keep coming back here?"

The truth chafes at me, but this is no time to let it out. "Why can't I go out?"

The man looks surprised. "You want to?" He scratches his head. "I don't think there's any rule about refusing to let people go out...but still. That's just asking for trouble, especially if you haven't gone through Jaden's survival training."

I swallow a response on how my entire life has been survival training. To someone like this guard, born in Asis, he would never understand.

"Where's Jaden?"

The man gives me directions that ends up leading me to the house across from Milo's house-slash-hospital. The house where I saw Nia disappear within. Of course.

I don't know how long I stand outside, staring at the house, but eventually someone steps out. She is thin, as if after all this time, her body hasn't trusted there to be enough food to ever eat enough. Her dark hair reaches just past her shoulders, but it's the hollow gaze in her eyes that is familiar to me. She has been where I have been.

Maybe she recognizes that same emptiness in my expression, because instead of telling me to run off and work or something, she says, "Well, get in here, then."

I follow her into her home, noting the heavy boots in the entry way and packed bags sitting near the door. One I recognize as Nia's.

"Your Nia's mother."

She makes a face I don't understand. "Try not to remind her."

Jaden points me to a spot at the table, which I dutifully sit in. She returns with two mugs of something hot. A faint scent of pine rises from it.

"Pine-needle tea. Not much else to brew at the moment." She takes her place across from me and levels a stare at me. "So, you must be Fen. I already met Tavelin and know about Hale."