UnSouled (Unwind Dystology 3)

“One of Wil’s songs of healing,” Elina says. “Wil’s music goes on, even if he doesn’t. It’s a comfort to us. Sometimes.”

Lev forces a smile, his lips not hurting quite so bad this time. “It’s good to be . . . here,” he says, almost saying “home” instead of “here.” Then he closes his eyes, because he’s afraid to see what her eyes will say back.

19 • Connor

“He’s awake,” Elina says. That’s all, just “he’s awake.” She is a woman of few words. At least few words for Connor.

“So, can I see him?”

She folds her arms and regards him coolly. Her lack of response is his answer. “Tell me one thing,” she finally says. “Is it because of you he became a clapper?”

“No!” says Connor, disgusted by the suggestion. “Absolutely not!” And then he adds, “It’s because of me that he didn’t clap.”

She nods, accepting his answer. “You can see him tomorrow, once he’s a little stronger.”

Connor sits back down on the sofa. The doctor’s home—in fact, the entire rez—is not what he expected. The Arápache have steeped themselves in both their culture and modern convenience. Plush leather furniture speaks of wealth, but it is clearly made by hand. The neighborhood—if one can call it that—is carved into the red stone cliffs on either side of a deep gorge, but the rooms are spacious, the floors are tiled with ornate marble, and the plumbing fixtures are polished brass or maybe even gold—Connor’s not sure. Dr. Elina’s medical supplies are also state of the art, although different in some fundamental way from medical supplies on the outside. Less clinical, somehow.

“Our philosophy is a little different,” she had told him. “We believe it’s best to heal from the inside out, rather than from the outside in.”

Across the room, the boy playing a board game with Grace growls in frustration. “How can you keep beating me in Serpents and Stones?” he whines at Grace. “You’ve never even played it before!”

Grace shrugs. “I learn quick.”

The boy, whose name is Kele, has little patience for losing. The game, Serpents and Stones, appears to be a lot like checkers, but with more strategy—and when it comes to strategy, Grace cannot be beat.

Once the kid storms away, Grace turns to Connor. “So your friend the clapper is gonna be okay?” she asks.

o;I don’t. But I have a right to know what he’s doing, don’t I?” It’s so like Janson to take everything she says literally. Shutting her out to spite her, like a child.

“He says he’ll tell you when he’s ready.”

It’s no sense trying to get anything out of the boy—he’s got the loyalty of a German shepherd.

She supposes this obsession of Janson’s is better than the despair he felt before. At least now he has something to focus on, something to take his thoughts away from the cascade of events that the Unwind Accord has brought about. Their new reality includes clinics that have popped up nationwide like mushrooms on an overwatered lawn, each of them advertising young, healthy parts. “Live to 120 and beyond!” the ads say. “Out with the old and in with the new!” No one asks where the parts are coming from, but everyone knows. And now it’s not just ferals that are being unwound—the Juvenile Authority has actually come up with a form that parents can use to send their “incorrigible” teen off for unwinding. At first she doubted anyone would use the form. She was convinced its very existence would finally spark the outcry she’d been waiting for. It didn’t. In fact, within a month, there was a kid in their own neighborhood who had been taken away to be unwound.

“Well, I think they did the right thing,” one of her neighbors confided. “That kid was a tragedy waiting to happen.”

Sonia doesn’t talk to either of those neighbors anymore.

Day to day, Sonia watches her husband waste away, and none of her pleas for him to take care of himself get through. She even threatens to leave him, but they both know it’s an empty threat.

“It’s almost ready,” he tells her one evening as he moves his fork around a plate of pasta, barely putting any into his mouth. “This’ll do it, Sonia—this will change everything.”

But he still won’t share with her exactly what he’s doing. Her only clue comes from his research assistant. Not from anything the boy says, but because he began his employment with three fingers on his left hand. And now he has five.

18 • Lev

He bounds through a dense forest canopy, high up where the leaves touch the sky. It’s night, but the moon is as bright as the sun. There is no earth, only trees. Or maybe it’s that the ground matters so little, it might as well not exist. Stirred by a warm breeze, the forest canopy rolls like ocean waves beneath the clear sky.

There is a creature leaping through the foliage in front of him, turning back to look at Lev every once in a while. It has huge cartoonish eyes in its small furred face. It’s not fleeing from Lev, he realizes; it’s leading him. This way, it seems to say with those soulful eyes that reflect twin images of the moon.

Where are you leading me? Lev wants to ask, but he can’t speak. Even if he could, he knows he won’t get an answer.

Branch to branch Lev leaps with an inborn skill that he did not possess in life. This is how he knows he’s dead. The experience is too clear, too vivid to be anything else. When he was alive, Lev never cared much for climbing trees. As a child, it was discouraged by his parents. Tithes need to protect their precious bodies, he was told, and climbing trees can lead to broken bones.

Broken.

He was broken in a car accident and left with deep damage inside. That damage must have been worse than anyone thought. His last memory is a cloudy recollection of pulling up to the eastern gate of the Arápache Rez. He remembers hearing his own voice telling the guard something, but he can’t remember what it was. His fever was soaring by then. All he wanted to do was sleep. He was unconscious before he learned whether or not the guard would let them in.