UnWholly (Unwind Dystology 2)

“There’s a road,” he says, “maybe a hundred yards or so through the woods. We can flag down a ride.”

“Who would be driving on a night like tonight?”

“There’s always someone desperate to go somewhere.”

The wind dies down a bit by the time they reach the road, but in tornado weather that could be a good sign or bad. They haven’t seen hail yet, and hail’s a sure sign that something worse is on the way.

Sure enough, there’s traffic on the two-lane road—not much, just a car every minute or two, but all they need is one.

“They won’t know we’re gone until after the storm passes,” Lev says. “If someone picks us up, promise me you won’t tell them about the mansion and what we’re doing there.”

“I won’t promise anything,” Miracolina tells him.

“Please,” Lev begs her. “The other kids there aren’t like you. They don’t want to be tithed. Don’t condemn them to something that was never their choice.”

Although it goes against her instincts, right now the line between right and wrong is blurry enough for her to say, “Fine. I won’t tell.”

“We’ll make up a story,” Lev says. “We were out biking and got caught in the storm. Just go along with anything I say. Then when we’re dropped off, if you really want to be tithed, go turn yourself in. I won’t stop you.”

And although she doubts he’ll make it that easy, she agrees.

“What about you? Where will you go?”

“I have no idea,” he tells her, and there is such a spark in his eye when he says it, she can tell having no idea is exactly the way he wants it.

Headlights approach, and the wind picks up again. They wave their arms and the vehicle, a van, pulls over to the side of the road. A window rolls down, and they hurry to the van.

“My God. What are you two doing out here in this?” says the driver.

“We were on our bikes—we didn’t know a storm was coming,” Lev says.

“Where are the bikes?”

“We left them way back,” Miracolina chimes in.

“We’ll come get them after the storm,” Lev says. “There’s a tornado watch—we just need to get out of here. Can you help us?”

“Of course I can.” He unlocks the car, and Lev pulls open the side door. As he does, the dome light comes on, illuminating the man’s face for the first time. Although the moment calls, quite literally, for any port in a storm, Miracolina can’t help but be a bit troubled by the man’s face as she gets in. There’s something odd about it. Or maybe it’s just his eyes.

olina considers herself up for any challenge. While she is a tithe, she has not lived the same sheltered life as most other tithes, and although she’s not a girl from the hard streets, she considers herself street-smart and world savvy. Escaping from the velvet-gloved fist of the resistance will be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.

Early on Lev personally warned her of the futility of an escape attempt. “There are sharpshooters with tranq rifles everywhere,” he said, making it sound hopeless. Yet every bit of information helps her, because Lev let it slip that although there’s a fence, it isn’t electrified. Good to know.

She explores every corner of the huge mansion to which she has access, paying special attention to the many unused, dilapidated rooms and corridors too far gone to be restored. Most of the windows are boarded over, and all the doors to the outside are locked. But the more forgotten an area is, the less reliable those locks will be—and a padlock hasp is only as good as the wood it’s screwed into. Such as the lock on the garden door, which has an unpleasant termite infestation. Once she finds the door, she files the information away for future reference.

The ex-tithes’ meals are usually served on chipped china that must have been part of the Cavenaugh collection in better days, but on Sundays, the finest stuff is brought out, including silver platters just large enough to fit beneath her shirt, like armor. Again, she files the information away for future reference.

Now all she needs is a diversion—not just inside the mansion, but outside as well. Unfortunately, that’s not something she can create, so she bides her time, confident that an opportunity will present itself. An opportunity such as a tornado watch on a Sunday night.

- - -

The wind is already picking up at dinnertime. Talk of the coming storm rumbles throughout the crowd of kids. Some are scared, some are excited. Lev is notably absent. Maybe he’s left to avoid the storm, whisked away by his protectors to a place of greater safety. When the meal is over, Miracolina clears her plate, taking with her a couple of silver serving platters, presumably to bring to the kitchen.

“You don’t have to do that, Miracolina,” says one of her teachers.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind,” she says with a smile, and the teacher smiles back, glad to see her finally settling in.

The storm hits like spring storms do, a warning wind, then a deluge like heaven itself has ruptured. Rain pours through holes in the roof into the areas that have yet to be repaired. The ballroom, where Miracolina was first greeted by Lev, is at least an inch deep with water. Pans set up beneath leaks in bedrooms fill and must be dumped. It’s like bailing out a sinking ship. The Weather Channel shows a grid of Michigan counties blinking angry red with tornado alerts.