Wordless Page 3

  I unfolded pieces of paper in a flurry, tossing each creased sheet on the floor as soon as I saw it was blank. It took half of the bag before found it: a sheet that wasn’t entirely blank.

  Not that I understood the situation any better because there was writing on it. Two short words printed in neat lines. It had been written by hand—a rare sight these days, even if you weren’t wordless.

  I crammed the sheet into my jacket pocket since I didn’t know what else to do with it, and stuffed all the other pieces of paper back into the bag. I knotted and swung the bag through the cab window, into the back of the truck with the other trash. The tires left behind some rubber as I drove away.

  Drey probably wasn’t even waiting for me yet, so I eased off the gas, trying not to drive like someone who’d just robbed a bank. Because then I would look guilty. And I wasn’t guilty.

  Right?

  I smoothed the worry from my face as I turned toward the service gate that would take me out to the trash containers. Just in time. The two security guards were standing outside their booths, blocking my exit.

  I mustered a grin as I slowed to a stop and stuck my head out the window. “Hey, boys.”

  “That’s ‘officer’ to you, boy,” the closest guard said.

  “Fair enough.” I shifted the truck into park. “What can I do for you, officers ?”

  “I’ve been instructed to give you something. It came from security headquarters.”

  Security headquarters? Cold sweat broke out on my forehead as he turned to his booth. I thought of the locked alleyway, its security camera and the Word I’d seen. Shit. Had she reported me? But then why would she slip me a message? Maybe someone else had finally realized I was nosing around where I didn’t belong. In any case, I was probably about to receive orders telling me not to bother coming back to work tomorrow. Or worse, orders for my arrest.

  The guard returned and passed a manila envelope through the window. But he didn’t move out of the way. He obviously wanted me to open it in front of him. The city was visible through the gate, and for once I wished I could be out there instead of in here.

  I unfolded the top flap of the envelope and shook a card out into my hand. Instead of just having a barcode for me to scan with my phone—how messages usually arrived—this card was laminated. It did have a barcode stamped on it, but also a shield and some words I couldn’t read.

  I fumbled for my phone and almost dropped it as it came out of my pocket. I scanned the card with shaking hands.

  “A message from Athenaeum Security,” a polite female voice intoned.

  My phone’s screen immediately came alive, showing a young man wearing all black, from his high-necked, long-sleeved shirt down to his ass-kicker boots. I knew this person—

  just like I knew his clothes were hiding something. And not just his muscular physique.

  They hid the Words on his skin.

  I’d only seen this Word once in a while on TV, and whenever I saw him, he was smiling like the others. But it was a smile that raised the hair on my arms, like now. He should have been my favorite Word, especially as a kid when I was still trying to see myself reflected in strong, cool

  people. Both his eyes and hair were about the same shade of brown as mine, as was his tan skin, but that was where the similarities ended. It was easy to imagine him lunging out of the picture to kill me. He could kill with a touch, after all—in any way imaginable.

  I guessed it made sense that the Word of Death would be the face of the security department. His pinky finger had more power than any gun.

  But then a white man with gray-streaked brown hair and a gray suit—an expensive-looking suit—replaced the Word of Death on my screen. The man blinked, and I realized I was seeing a video recording instead of a picture. The time signature told me it wasn’t live.

  “Greetings,” the man said. “I am Dr. Swanson. Your name and employee file was forwarded to me for clearance permission at approximately eleven-hundred hours yesterday morning.”

  Which was right about when I’d first shown up outside the locked alley. I was definitely screwed.

  Dr. Swanson continued. “Your position in the janitorial and maintenance department allows for this level of clearance, as did your background check. Please take this badge, indicating your new clearance level, for wherever eye scanners are unavailable. Be aware,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “that with your higher level of security clearance, it is now your responsibility to report any suspicious activity. Feel free to report to any member of our security team or even to me personally. Remember, help is never far away.”

  To me, “be aware” sounded like beware. And despite his distantly friendly tone, the rest of his speech had come across as something like “I’ll be watching you.”

  The screen went dark.

  I was breathless, both with relief and with renewed fear. Was this a test? Was I supposed to report the strange note that I’d found, a note that was probably from the Word of Life? But she was one of the nine Words who ran the city. Why the hell would I need to report her? Was she testing me? I had no idea what to think. And I wouldn’t know until I’d deciphered her message.

  I felt like puking, but I grinned again at the security guard. “Can I go, now, officer? I have a higher level of clearance, after all.”

  The guard scowled and punched, rather than pushed, the button to open the outer gate.

  I almost forgot to empty the bags into the containers outside after I passed through the gate, and to leave the keys on the driver’s seat for the security guard. And I nearly failed to stop myself from running instead of walking across the sun-baked parking lot to our garbage truck.

  “Are you all right?” Drey asked as soon as he laid eyes on me. “You sick?”

  I jumped in with only a shake of my head. I kept silent while he maneuvered the truck’s beefy mechanical forks to lift the containers, tipping the contents into the compactor. If I started talking about what was happening, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from admitting I’d sneaked into the Word’s courtyard and found her note. This job had been a favor from Drey, an opportunity, and I was most likely screwing it up spectacularly. The crumpled paper felt like a lead weight in my pocket. Never mind the laminated card in my other pocket.

  I finished up the rest of our collection run without saying much. The old routine was colorless and boring after the excitement—too much excitement—of the Athenaeum. I was all but jumping out of my neon-green overalls with impatience, and maybe something closer to panic, by the time the day was over.

  I closed myself in my room as soon as we returned to the garage, telling Drey I felt sick—which was actually true. As soon as I locked the door, I tore the piece of paper out of my jacket pocket and hurled it onto the metal desk like it was a live scorpion. Maybe it was even more lethal; I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t have an easy way to find out.

  I spread the sheet flat on the desk. The near-perfect handwriting was still visible through the wrinkles. The page looked out of place in the room; Drey didn’t keep much paper around. Part of me just wanted to get rid of it, and fast, like it was incriminating evidence. There was a lighter underneath my cot, which I’d used for smoking a couple of times before I’d lost interest in making my mouth taste like a garbage incinerator. I could burn it.

  But what if the message was important? What if it was meant for me? What if it was from her and it wasn’t some sick test of my loyalties to my new employer?

  Maybe I needed to get rid of the paper, but not the message.

  There was a postcard taped above the desk, the only decoration on the concrete wall. Drey said he’d found it in a trash container long before he’d found me in one.

  Matterhorn, Switzerland, the letters over the picture apparently said—Drey had asked someone who could read before he gave it to me. It showed a craggy mountain and a more wide-open sky than
I’d ever seen. As much as I’d stared at the front of it, wishing I could be there, I knew the back was blank.

  I tugged open one of the drawers in the desk, cursing when it protested with a shriek. The thing needed to be oiled—not that now was the time. Drey might be wordless, but he knew numbers and used to scribble down simple calculations for the garage, back before he started using his phone. My fingers scrabbled past a broken calculator for a dirty nub of a pencil that looked like it hadn’t been used in a decade. I certainly hadn’t been using it.

  I slapped the postcard face-down next to the glaring white page and hunched over both, studying the incomprehensible message, the pencil gripped in my hand like a knife.

  The first letter looked like scaffolding with only one shelf in the middle. I carved it as delicately as I could—though my dexterity was definitely lacking—into the postcard. The second letter was a little more difficult: a vertical line with three shelves sticking out to the right. The third was easy: a right angle like the square ruler out in the garage, which I almost wished I had for this project even though it would be unwieldy. The last letter of the word was like a hatchet standing upright, with a rounded blade facing to the right.

  I paused to look at my handiwork. The scratchy pencil marks only vaguely resembled the original letters. Good. They were close enough … and different enough, especially on the yellowed back of the postcard that would soon be facing the wall again.

  The second word was short, only two letters. The first looked like two pyramids, linked in the middle with no bases. The last was one I’d already copied—the second letter of the other word.

  When I finished, I crouched in the corner with my lighter and the white piece of paper. Before long, there was nothing but flaking ash, which I stomped into the concrete.

  But there was smoke, too.

  “Tavin?” Drey said, his voice as sharp as the sudden pounding on the door. “I smell something burning. And why is your door locked?”

  My own feet tripped me up in my hurry to get to the door. I didn’t often lock it, and I never failed to open it after he knocked. I cursed after smashing my knee into the metal chair and whipped the door open to find him frowning up at me.

  “What’s going on, Tav?”

  No doubt my face looked too guilty to deny everything. “I was … I was smoking.”

  Drey sighed. “You know that’s bad for you. And if you don’t, take it from an old man.”

  “You’re not old,” I said.

  He smiled—but then he sniffed the air. “That doesn’t smell like a cigarette. Or dope. What on earth were you smoking?”

  He sidled into the room before I could think of anything to say. I tried not to look at the greasy smear of ash in the corner. Fortunately, the concrete floor was already pretty grimy.

  But Drey wasn’t looking at the floor. He was looking at the desk, and only then did I remember that I hadn’t re-hung the postcard or closed the squeaky drawer, which was open like a mouth shouting the truth.

  “What’s this?” Drey asked, picking up the postcard with the message scratched into the back. The pencil sat nearby, looking like a murder weapon at the scene of a crime.

  Before I could invent some excuse about pretending to write—which would have worked, since Drey couldn’t tell the difference between real or fake letters—he asked in a tone of utter surprise:

  “Why does this say ‘help me’?”

  four

  H-E-L-P M-E

  So that was what those letters meant. The news was nearly as shocking as the fact that Drey could read.

  “How do you know what it says?” I demanded.

  “I … well … ” Then his surprise, which had obviously lowered his guard, vanished. “Never mind! What is this doing here? Did you write this? And what was burning?”

  I folded my arms, not caring that I looked—and sounded—like I’d reverted to the age of ten. “I’m not telling until you tell me how the hell you’ve been able to read all this time! Why didn’t you ever say anything? Why didn’t you teach me?”

  The hurt was audible in my voice—yep, definitely ten—and Drey’s expression turned regretful for a second. Then his grizzled jaw hardened. “That’s none of your damn business. I don’t owe you any explanations. But you’re in my garage, so you owe me an explanation of what’s going on in here!”

  He’d never before drawn a line between his and my territory, always treating me more like family than an employee. I dropped onto the edge of my cot without saying anything. I didn’t think I could say anything without embarrassing myself. My throat was too tight.

  The letters that apparently said Matterhorn, Switzerland stared at me from the back of the postcard in Drey’s hand. He’d told me that he’d asked what they meant, but now I knew he hadn’t. He’d read them himself.

  “I kept it secret for your own good,” Drey said in nearly a whisper, putting a hand on the desk almost like he was steadying himself. “And I still can’t tell you anything, so don’t ask. No one knows I’m not wordless. Please don’t mention it to anyone. Forget this ever happened.”

  I was looking into my hands, not at him. Pencil smears darkened the tips of my fingers. It all made sense now, why he was so smart and knew so many things. All of those legends and histories—I’d assumed he’d heard the stories from other people, but who around here could have told him? Anger melted the lump in my throat.

  “If I have to forget you can read, then you forget you read those words,” I said. “Forget you smelled smoke. I’m not sharing secrets if you won’t.”

  Drey looked tired, more tired than I’d ever seen him. He hesitated, studying the postcard he’d given me years ago that now bore an ominous but cryptic message, as though wondering if my secret was worth trading for.

  It apparently wasn’t, because he left the room, taking my view of the mountain with him.

  That didn’t make me angry—I was already angry enough. Besides, I didn’t need the copied message anymore, now that I knew what it said. Not that I knew what I was going to do about it.

  All I did know was that she—the Word of Life—had asked for help. She was the only one who’d spotted me with a trash bag in that courtyard. No one else had been in there; I’d been on the lookout, seeing as I’d been sneaking around. And she was the only one who could think I was stupid enough to help her, probably from the way I’d gawked at her.

  The message had to be from her. For me.

  But why the hell would she need my help? What could I even do? I was impotent, and she was one of the most powerful people on the planet.

  Maybe she had been looking at the sky with longing. But why? Perhaps that place was somehow a cage for her, even though she was powerful. Or, rather, because she was powerful. Maybe she had to pose for so many TV clips and posters that she didn’t have any time for anything else. Maybe the other Words, like Death, were using her.

  Or maybe my imagination was running away with me again. Maybe she was the one using me. But I had to find out.

  Drey had always told me that anger makes a man lose his head, and he was probably right. Because I was going to try to help her. Even if I was a sucker, at least I would be doing something. Whatever it was. The only plan I could think of was to hang out under her balcony until she either turned up or dropped another clue on my head.

  The object in my other pocket weighed me down again, and I slid the laminated card out. I leaned back on the cot, resting my sweaty shoulders against the cool concrete wall, studying it, even though the typewritten letters made no more sense to me than the Word’s secret message had.

  Dr. Swanson had said that it granted me higher clearance. Maybe I could use this card to get into the Athenaeum outside of my scheduled hours. But anything I did outside of my usual work routine would draw unwanted attention. If I used the card to get in, I couldn’t just drive around in the t
ruck, losing myself in the streets until I could sneak back to the courtyard; the security guards would expect me to report to them or go straight to Dr. Swanson, who would expect the same thing if they let him know I was there—which was likely. Then they would be looking for me.

  Deciding to go back to the Athenaeum wasn’t difficult. Waiting until my next shift the following morning was the hard part. I sat on my cot, staring at the cracks in the wall now that my postcard-view of the outside world was gone. Maybe, I thought with relief, she only wanted something little from me, like smuggling something in for her—maybe she couldn’t get Captain Crunch in the Athenaeum. I sure had plenty of that to give her. Because what else could I do?

  Realistically, I knew it had to be something more than that. Maybe much more, and I didn’t know how far I was willing to go. I didn’t want to lose my job—or worse. Picturing the Word of Death and his lethal touch made me swallow butterflies, and not normal-sized ones, but monster butterflies careening around in panic, trying to break out of my stomach with their flapping.

  I lay down on my cot in my clothes, giving sleep a try, but the train of my thoughts was racing too fast to let me get off and rest. Eventually, I got up to shower in the middle of the night and was still awake when Drey tapped on my door almost timidly a couple hours later. I was already dressed, buzzing with nervous energy, and I didn’t accept the rank-smelling cup of coffee from him this time.

  Drey was quiet, offering none of his usual stories as we suited up, me in hospital white and him in our usual green. It was like he was sorry. But he didn’t apologize, or tell me why he wasn’t wordless, as we made our way to the truck and out of the garage. I kept my end of the pact of silence and didn’t say anything about my crazy plan—or lack thereof—to try to help one of the Words.

  We pulled up behind the shadowy pyramid with the first rays of morning light peeking over the forested mountains ringing Eden City and the lake. Drey cleared his throat, but I opened the truck door anyway.

  “I don’t know what you might be up to,” he said, as softly as possible over the growl of the engine, his hands on the steering wheel and eyes straight ahead, staring across the empty parking lot. “You’re a smart boy—a smart man, even. Just be careful, okay, Tav?”