The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,274

know yourself. Give them to him when he’s ready, she said.”

A familiar sadness washed over him. “I’m sorry, Auntie,” he said after a moment. “You’ve made a mistake. She must have meant Theo.”

But she shook her head. “No, Peter.” She smiled a toothless smile; her vaporous cloud of hair, backlit by the spots pouring down outside the windows, seemed to glow around her face—a halo of hair and light. “It was you. She told me to give them to you.”

Later Peter would think: how strange it was. How, standing in the quiet of Auntie’s room, among her things of the past, he had felt time opening before him, like the pages of a book. He thought of his mother’s final hours—of her hands, and the close heat of the bedroom where Peter had cared for her; of her sudden struggle for breath, and the last imploring words she’d spoken. Take care of your brother, Theo. He’s not strong, like you. Her intentions had seemed so clear. And yet as Peter searched this moment, the memory began to shift, his mother’s words forming a new shape and emphasis and, with that, a different meaning entirely.

Take care of your brother Theo.

His thoughts were broken by a burst of knocking from the porch.

“Auntie, are you expecting anyone?”

The old woman frowned. “At this hour?”

Peter quickly returned the maps to the box and slid them beneath the bed. It wasn’t until he reached the front door and saw Michael standing behind the screen that he wondered why he’d done this. Michael eased himself into the room, darting a glance past Peter to the old woman, who was standing behind him, her arms folded disapprovingly over her chest.

“Hey, Auntie,” he said breathlessly.

“Hey yourself, rude boy. You come knocking at my door in the middle of the night, I expect a how-do-you-do.”

“Sorry.” His cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “How are you this evening, Auntie?”

She nodded. “I’m expecting I’m all right.”

Michael directed his attention to Peter again, lowering his voice confidentially. “Could I speak to you? Outside?”

Peter stepped onto the porch behind Michael, in time to see Dale Levine appearing out of the shadows.

“Tell him what you told me,” said Michael.

“Dale? What is it?”

“Look,” the man said, glancing around nervously, “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, and I have to get back to the Wall. But if you’re planning on getting Alicia and Caleb out of here, I’d do it at first light. I can help you at the gate.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

It was Michael who answered. “The guns, Peter. They’re going to get the guns.”

FORTY-ONE

In the Infirmary, Sara Fisher, First Nurse, was waiting with the girl.

Amy, Sara thought. Her name was Amy. This impossible girl, this one-hundred-year-old girl, was named Amy. Is that you? she’d asked her. Is that your name? Are you Amy?

Yes, her eyes said. She might have actually smiled. How long since she had heard the sound of her name? That’s me. I’m Amy.

Sara wished she had some clothing for the girl, instead of the gown. It didn’t seem right for a girl who had a name not to have clothing to wear, and a pair of shoes. Sara should have thought of that before returning to the Infirmary. The girl was shorter than she was, lighter-boned and slimmer-hipped, but Sara had a pair of gaps she liked to ride in, snug at the waist and seat, that would fit the girl well enough if she cinched them tight. She needed a bath, too, and a haircut.

Sara didn’t question anything Michael had told her. Michael was Michael, that’s what everyone said, meaning he was too smart by half—too smart for his own good. But the one thing he wasn’t, not ever, was wrong. There would come a time, Sara supposed, when this would happen—a person couldn’t be right all the time—and she wondered what would become of her brother on that day. The ceaseless effort he applied to being right, to fixing every problem, would suddenly collapse inside him. It made Sara think of a game they had played as Littles, building towers of blocks and then pulling them away from the lower tiers, one by one, daring the whole thing to fall; and when it fell, it happened swiftly, all at once. She wondered if that’s what would happen to Michael, if there would be any part left standing. He would need her then, as he had needed her that morning in the shed when they’d found their parents—the day when Sara had failed him.

Sara