UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,43

him they’re interested in—it’s the skinny umber kid with him. CyFi’s hands overflow with gold chains and glittering stones of every color. He’s pleading with the sienna-colored man and woman, who clutch each other, staring at the kid in terror.

“Please don’t unwind me.” CyFi’s words are hoarse and choked with sobs. “Please don’t unwind me. . . .”

A cool hand touches Lev’s cheek, and the memory is sucked in like a mental gasp. He left CyFi days ago. He’s somewhere else now.

“You’re safe, child,” the woman’s reassuring voice says. “Open your eyes.”

When he does, he sees her pleasant face smiling at him. Square jaw, black hair tied back, and bronze skin, she’s a—“SlotMonger!” he blurts, and feels his skin flush red. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . . It just came out. . . .”

She chuckles. “Old words die hard,” she tells him with patient understanding. “We were called Indians long after it was obvious we weren’t from India. And ‘Native American’ was always a bit too condescending for my taste.”

“ChanceFolk,” Lev says, hoping the offensiveness of his previous slur will quickly be forgotten.

“Yes,” the woman says. “People of Chance. Of course the casinos are long gone, but I suppose the name was evocative enough to stick.”

He sees the stethoscope around her neck—the one he had at first incorrectly thought belonged to a harvest camp surgeon.

“You’re a doctor?”

“A Woman of Medicine, yes—and as such I can tell you that your cuts and bruises are healing, and the swelling of your wrist is much reduced. Leave the brace on till I give you leave to shed it. You need to gain a few pounds, but once you taste my husband’s cooking, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Lev watches warily as she sits on the edge of his bed and studies him.

“But your spirit, child, is a vastly different matter.”

He withdraws, and her lips purse ruefully.

“Healing takes time; for some more time than for others. Tell me one thing, and I’ll leave you to rest.”

He stiffens, reflexively on his guard. “What?”

“What is your name?”

“Lev Calder,” he says, and regrets it immediately. It’s been almost three weeks since he was dragged by Connor from his limo, but the powers that be are still looking for him. It was one thing to be traveling with CyFi, but to give a doctor his name—what if she turns him over to the Juvenile Authority? He thinks of his parents and the destiny he left behind. How could he have wanted to be unwound? How could his parents have made him want it? It fills him with an unrelenting fury at everyone and everything. He’s not a tithe anymore. He’s an AWOL now. He’d better start thinking like one.

“Well, Lev, we’re petitioning the Tribal Council to allow you to stay. You don’t have to tell me all you’ve been through—I’m sure it was horrible.” And then her eyes brighten. “But we People of Chance do believe in people of second chance.”

2 • Wil

He stands in the doorway, watching the boy sleep. His guitar hangs down his back, warm from the sun, strings still humming.

He doesn’t mind being here, though he was sorry to have to leave the forest. His time accompanying the sounds of shivering leaves, whirling dust devils, and powerful Chinook winds is always special to him. There’s calming joy in transposing nature to music. Adapting the chords of yellow-shouldered blackbirds, prairie dogs, and wild pigs. Bringing their voices into each movement he plays.

Wil brought Dad’s leftover blackberry crumble to the forest with him. Una brought some elk jerky and a thermos of cinnamon-spiced chocolate. She sat with him beneath a spreading oak while he played, although she left before he finished, as it was her turn to clean the workshop.

His guitar always sounds a little melancholy when Una leaves.

The AWOL boy that his mother has taken into their home has been awake for a day now, but he hasn’t come down for anything, even meals. Dad offered to carry him, but Ma said he needed more time.

“Can’t fret over AWOLs,” his father told her. “They never stay long, and they’re too desperate to be grateful.” But Ma just ignores him. She’s taken the boy under her protection, and that is that.

Wil wonders how the boy can sleep when the sun blasts through the windows over his head, and the roar of tribal construction in town echoes down the ravine. The boy’s chest rises and falls, and then his legs churn beneath the