Author: Jodi Meadows

My vision untunneled and the room snapped back into focus. So did the blaze in my hands and wrists. A groan rumbled through me.

Sam stood before me, concern dark on his face. “Come on. You’re still in shock.” He guided me to a chair by the now-lit stove and removed my boots and coat, taking extra care where the sleeves brushed my hands. “What can I do for you?”

I just wanted to stop hurting. Staring at the books had been better. I turned back to them, willing myself to get lost in my own numbness. The pain was too intense, more than I could possibly endure.

He crossed my field of vision, pausing in front of the bookcase. “You like to read.”

Had I said that? Had he guessed? Either way, I didn’t move from the chair. Eventually I would make it back into the nothing-state of no pain.

Sam chose a book and carried it to me, like I’d be able to do something with it. But he sat on the arm of the chair, next to me, and opened to the first page. “So I guess you know the fifteen years are all named after events or accomplishments that happened in the first few generations, before we’d created a formal calendar?”

I didn’t move.

“Year of Drought, obviously there was a terrible drought. Followed by the Year of Hunger, when everyone starved to death the next year.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Yes? You know all this?”

I still didn’t move. We were in the 331st Year of Hunger now. Maybe they’d rename it the Year of Freezing, Then Burning, And Mostly Running for Your Life. After me, of course.

“My second-favorite story is the Year of Dreams, when we began trying to understand the hot mud pits and everyone started hallucinating from inhaling the fumes around one of them.” He flipped through the pages of the book, steady-handed, sure of himself. I tried not to be envious of his lack of burns. “Let’s see. Year of Dance.” He turned a few more pages. “Year of Dreams.” His voice pitched lower as he read aloud. “‘We set out on an expedition to make sure the geothermal features around Heart weren’t immediately dangerous. Of course, we were quite surprised at what we discovered. . . .’”

He continued to read for another hour, changing his voice to match the mood of the passage. He was good at this, and I’d never been read to before. The way he spoke drew me in until finally I relaxed.

The pain eased.

I hovered in the misty place between waking and sleeping, half dreaming of a deep humming. Then the fire in my hands returned, and when I groaned and opened my eyes, the only sound was the scratch of pen on paper.

“Did I wake you?” Sam looked up from scribbling in a book.

Yes. “No.” It didn’t matter. My hands wouldn’t stop hurting long enough for me to rest well.

I was lying on the bed, though I didn’t remember moving. Had he carried me? He’d definitely pulled the blankets over me. My burns hurt too much to grasp the thick wool.

There was a terrifying thought. What happened when I had to use the washroom? I steeled myself and considered my hands; the left one wasn’t quite as bad. I could suffer a little pain to salvage any remaining dignity.

Reassured, I glanced at Sam again, who’d gone back to writing in his book. “What are you doing?”

His pen hesitated over the paper, like I’d made him lose his place.

I shouldn’t have asked. I knew better, but my hands—

“Writing notes.” He blew on the ink, closed the book, and set everything aside. “Would you like to read more?”

“Only if you want.” When he looked away, I tried to sit up. But every time I used my elbows to push myself, they jabbed onto the blanket. I kept pinning myself to the bed. Refusing to let a stupid blanket win, I kicked to move it downward. With it out of my way, I pushed again with my elbows. I’d miscalculated and the same problem—the blanket—threw me back down.

I slapped the bed to keep my balance—

An inferno surged through my arm and I screamed, clutching my hand against my chest.

Sam was at my side in an instant, arms encircling me.

Trapped. I yelled and fought to escape, but he wouldn’t let go. Unable to use my hands to push, I tried to bite him. Mouthful of wool. An ugly sob escaped.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, shaking like he could be anywhere near as upset about this as me. “I’m sorry.”

This wasn’t trapping me. It was . . . hugging? I’d seen Li embrace her friends during the rare visit. No one hugged me, of course. Apparently no one had told Sam.

When he finished hugging me, he checked my palm for new damage. I’d been lucky. “Take these.” He retrieved a handful of pills from a small table and offered water to wash them down. “Tell me if you need anything else.”

I swallowed the pills. “Okay.”

He met my eyes, seemed to search me. “You have to tell me. Don’t make me guess.”

I lowered my gaze first. “Okay.”

He didn’t believe me. It was the same expression Li used when she didn’t think I’d actually cleaned the cavies’ cages, or turned the compost pile. But he hadn’t asked me to do chores, just wanted me to tell him if I needed anything.

Okay. If I needed anything, I would tell him.

“Do you want to read more?” he asked, after a few moments of sitting unnervingly close.

I nodded.

He sighed and freed me from the blankets. “This is already going to be a difficult recovery for you, but it doesn’t have to be terrible. Tell me things you want, too.”

Like that would ever happen.

Over the next few days, Sam told stories until his voice grew hoarse. He reminisced about learning stone carving, textile arts, glassblowing, carpentry, and metalworking. He’d spent lifetimes farming and raising livestock, learning everything he could.

He told me all about the geysers and hot springs around Heart, the desert lands southwest of Range, and the ocean beyond that. I couldn’t even fathom the ocean.

I liked listening to him, and he’d stopped asking me to tell him if there was anything I needed. At least, I thought I was safe until he closed the book he’d been reading from and said, “I can’t talk anymore.”

He did sound rougher, but I tried not to feel guilty, since I’d never actually asked him to talk until he lost his voice.

“Will—” I swallowed and tried again. “Will you turn the pages so I can read to myself?” The weight of his regard settled like fog. “Please,” I whispered.

“No.”

My heart sank. I shouldn’t have asked.

“Not until you tell me something about yourself.”

No one wanted to hear what the nosoul had to say. All his stories had been so interesting, filled with people and events I couldn’t have dreamt of. I had nothing that would compare. “I can’t.”

“You can.” He studied me, like if he looked hard enough he’d find all the things I wasn’t telling him. But I didn’t have anything. “What makes you happy? What do you like?”

Why did he care? At least he didn’t expect me to tell him about a grand adventure. And if I told him something I liked, he’d turn the pages so I could read more. A fair trade.

“Music makes me happy.” More than happy. More than I could ever explain to him. “I found a player in the cottage library and figured out how to turn it on. There it was, Dossam’s Phoenix Symphony.” Easily, I could recall the way my stomach had dropped when the first notes played, and then I’d felt—swollen. Full. Like something inside me had finally awakened. “I love him, his music.”

No, that wasn’t right. A nosoul couldn’t love.

I lurched to my feet and stumbled across the room, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Li would find me. She’d know what I’d said. She’d hit me and yell about how a nosoul couldn’t love. I’d been stupid, careless with my words because the thought of music had relaxed me. I had to be careful. No more slips.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean love.”

Footsteps approached, making my heart thud against my ribs as I braced for the strike that never came.

“Ana.” Sam stood within arm’s reach but didn’t touch me. Probably afraid I’d break down if he did. “Do you really feel that way? That you aren’t allowed certain emotions?”

I couldn’t look at him.

“You’re not a nosoul. You’re allowed to feel however you feel.”

So he kept saying, and I wanted to believe him, but . . .

“I think we should talk about this.”

My throat hurt from holding back tears. “I don’t want to.” His good intentions just made it more confusing.

He touched the small of my back. I jumped, but he was so gentle. “Someone without a soul wouldn’t have risked her life to save mine, especially since—as you said—I’d just come back.”

I stepped away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right.” He hazarded a smile. “At least I learned something about you.”

Flinching, I tried not to count the number of things he’d just learned: I claimed to feel emotions I couldn’t, I jumped and ran even when no one was chasing me. . . .

“You like music.” He smiled warmly. “I have my SED here. It can play music. I’m happy to let you borrow it, if you ask.”

If I asked?

My confusion must have been evident, because he brushed a strand of hair from my eyes and said, “Say the words. Ask.”

My hands and heart ached. I wanted to run outside and hide, never have to worry about this again. When to ask. When not to ask. Whether Li would appear and punish me for thinking I was allowed any sort of happiness. There was just too much, and it felt like drowning, like burning. But running away wouldn’t help.

Sam had offered to take me to Heart, had spent the last few days speaking his voice raw, and would let me listen to music—if only I asked. Surely that wasn’t too much to give him, a few words.

I swallowed knots in my throat. “Sam, may I please listen to music?”

“Of course. I’ll find it for you.” Tension ran from his shoulders, like he’d actually been worried I wouldn’t ask. Like he cared.

Maybe he did.

Music pressed into my ears, filling me completely. A piano, a flute, and low strings I couldn’t identify.

I’d never heard the song before, and I wanted to explain to Sam how much I appreciated it—how much of a gift this was—but I couldn’t find the words. Instead, when he sat on the chair, I sat on the arm like he had the day he’d started reading to me.

With a mysterious smile, he pulled the SED from the harness at my waist and flicked on a screen. A dozen musicians sat in a half-moon, playing instruments I’d seen drawings of, but never the real thing. The stage projected their sound to a darkened audience, and to my earpieces.

Phoenix Symphony, my favorite. That must have been Dossam conducting from the piano. The books in the cottage library never had his—sometimes her—picture. Even this was difficult to see. The screen was small, and the image blurry. But I liked the way he caressed the piano keys and directed the other twenty members of the orchestra, as though physically drawing the music from them. Without him, there’d be only silence.

Mesmerizing.

“Li’s didn’t have video. I think Cris must have left it behind. Was it just old?”

Sam nodded. “Li probably had a newer one she didn’t let you see. Everyone uses Stef’s new design now.”

I scowled at the piece of machinery, which probably fit perfectly in Sam’s palm, but mine was too small. Not that I could pick it up right now. “Stef from your stories?”

“The same. He loves this kind of thing, but for a long time, no one used any of the technology he developed. Too annoying to carry around. Eventually he decided to put everything—image capturing, playback, voice communication, a billion other things—into one device.”