UnSouled

Lev closes his eyes, trying to ward off the memory of that one awful day. Like Pivane, Lev finds the pain of it too much to bear. He takes a deep breath, keeping the memory and all the emotions it holds at bay, then opens his eyes once more. “So I went to that terrible place inside . . . . I went to hell. But in the end I came back.”

Elina grins at him. “And now you’re here.”

Lev nods. “And now I’m here.” Although he has no idea where he’ll be tomorrow.

•   •   •

Lev comes out to the great room after the sun sets.

“You’re alive,” Co

“Surprised?”

“Yeah, every time I see you.”

Co

“Love the ponytail,” Co

Lev shrugs. “It’s just because my hair is so tatted. But maybe I’ll keep it.”

“Don’t,” Co

That makes Lev laugh, which makes his side hurt, and he grimaces.

The greetings now begin to feel like a receiving line. Kele comes up to Lev, looking awkward. He was a head shorter than Lev when they last saw each other. Now he’s almost the same height.

“Hi, Lev. I’m glad you came back and that you didn’t come back dead.”

Kele will continue to grow, but Lev will not. Stunted growth. That’s what he gets for lacing his blood with explosive chemicals.

Pivane is there, cooking di

“So how do you know you won’t still blow up?”

And in the awkward silence that follows, Kele says, “I was kinda wondering that too.”

Lev makes his eyes wide. “Maybe I will,” he says ominously, then waits a few seconds and shouts “BOOM!” It makes everyone jump—but no one quite as much as Grace, who spills her stew and lets loose a stream of curses that makes everyone burst out laughing.

After di

“So what’s the deal here?” he asks quietly. “How do you know all these people?”

Lev takes a deep breath. He owes Co

“Wil?”

“Yes, Wil. He offered himself in exchange for the rest of our lives.”

Co

“They were looking for something special. And Wil was something special. I’ve never heard anyone play guitar like he played. Once they had him, they didn’t care about the rest of us. Anyway, since I was there, and I was an outsider, I kind of became the scapegoat. There was no staying after that.”

Co

“I’m already comfortable,” Lev tells him, and leaves before Co

•   •   •

The cliff-side home is spacious. The individual bedrooms are small but numerous, and all of them open to the great room, which serves as living room, dining room, and kitchen. Perhaps out of morbid curiosity, Lev checks out the room that was Wil’s. He thinks they might have kept it as it was, but they haven’t. They haven’t redesigned it for anyone else either. Wil’s room is now empty of furniture and decorations. Nothing but bare stone walls.

“No one will use this room again,” Elina tells Lev. “At least not in my lifetime.” As everyone begins to settle down for the night, Lev goes looking for Pivane. There’s been more awkwardness between them than Lev has found with anyone else, and Lev hopes he can bridge the gap. He expects to find the man down on the first floor, creek-bed level, in the workroom, tinkering with something. Perhaps preparing hides for ta

She sits there at the workbench, her hair pulled back in a colorful tie, looking exactly the same as Lev remembers. Una.

Una was Wil’s fiancée and must have been more devastated than anyone when Wil was taken by the parts pirates and unwound. After that, his petition to join the tribe was quickly denied, Pivane had driven him to the gate, and Lev was set loose without ever saying good-bye to Una. Lev had been glad for that at the time. He’d had no idea what to say to her then, and he has no idea what to say now, so he lingers in the shadows, not wanting to step into the light.

Una is absorbed in cleaning a rifle that Lev recognizes as Pivane’s. Does she know that he’s here on the rez? Elina was very clear that his presence was to be kept low-key. His question is answered when Una says, without looking up, “Not very good at lurking, are you, Lev?”

He steps forward, but Una keeps her attention focused on the rifle without looking at him.

“Elina told me you were back,” she says.

“But you didn’t come to see me.”

“Who says I wanted to?” Finally she spares a look at him, but she keeps her poker face. “Anyone ever teach you how to clean a bolt-action rifle?”

“No.”

“Come here. I’ll show you.”

She takes Lev through the steps of removing the bolt and scope. “Pivane has been teaching me to shoot, and I’ve been finding a desire to do it,” Una tells him. “When he gets his new rifle, he’ll give me this one.”

“A little different from making guitars,” Lev says, which is what Una does.

“Both will have their place in my life,” Una tells him, then directs him in cleaning the inside of the rifle barrel with solvent and a copper brush. She says nothing about what happened the last time he was on the rez, but it hangs as heavy and as dark as gunmetal between them.

“I’m sorry about Wil,” he finally says.

Una is silent for a moment, then says, “They sent back his guitar—whoever ‘they’ is. There was no explanation, no return address. I burned it on a funeral pyre because we had no body to burn.”

Lev holds his silence. The idea of Wil’s guitar turned to ash is almost as horrifying as the thought of his unwinding.

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” Una says, “but Wil would not have helped lead that vision quest if it hadn’t been for you and would never have been taken by those parts pirates. No, it wasn’t your fault, little brother—but I wish you had never come here.”

Lev puts down the rifle barrel. “I’m sorry. I’ll go now.”

But Una grabs his arm. “Let me finish.” She lets go of him, and now Lev can see the tears in her eyes. “I wish you had never come, but you did—and ever since you left, I wished you would come back. Because you belong here, Lev—no matter what the council says.”

“You’re wrong. There’s nowhere I belong.”

“Well, you certainly don’t belong out there. The fact that you almost blew yourself up proves it.”

Lev doesn’t want to talk about his days as a clapper. Not to Una. Instead he decides to share something else. “I haven’t told anyone this, but I had a dream before my fever broke. I was jumping through the branches of a forest.”

Una considers it. “What kind of forest? Pine or oak?”