Chapter Nine
To say Harriet's announcement came as a shock to all of us would be the understatement of the century. It was completely unprecedented. Never, in all the time we had been in the Glade, had a boy been sent up in the Box; it was always a girl. Or at least it had always been a girl until now. That, I realised as I watched everyone milling around in confusion, meant there had been two deviations from our normal schedule in one day. First the alarm going off when it wasn't supposed to, now this. What else was going to happen?
Before I had time to wonder, Harriet spoke again. "Well, we can't leave him in there." She turned to the two girls nearest to her. "Julia, Dido, go fetch the rope."
As Julia and Dido hurried to do as Harriet instructed, the rest of us continued to hang around the area of the Box Hole, though not all of us could get close enough to see into the Box. So we waited, wanting to satisfy our curiosity; the boy in the Box would after all be the first male any of us could remember seeing and speculation about why he had been sent here was rife. A few of us even suggested that, after sending fifty-nine girls to the Glade, the Creators had decided the time had come to start sending boys to be our "partners"; I don't think I need to tell you what that implies. I, however, had a feeling the explanation for the boy's presence in the Box was something completely different, though I didn't know what.
Just then, Julia and Dido came back, carrying the rope we used to get new kids out of the Box. Normally at this stage, the rope would be lowered, then the kid would grab hold of it and be hauled out of the Box and into the Glade, but that didn't happen this time. Instead, once the rope had been lowered, Sonya climbed down into the Box. Clearly, I realised as I watched the unfolding scene, the boy was unable to grasp the rope for some reason; that must be why Sonya had climbed in after him. Him. It was going to be strange seeing a boy in the Glade, especially when, like so many other things, I could remember what boys were and how they differed physically from girls, but any memories of specific boys had been lost to me.
"OK!" Sonya called from inside the Box. "He's secure! Pull us up!"
Around a dozen girls, including Harriet, immediately began hauling on the rope, several of them grunting with the effort, a sure sign that they were having to pull up two people. Gradually, the first male to enter the Glade was revealed. From where I was standing, I could see that he was in his mid to late teens, with olive skin and dark hair. He also seemed to be asleep or . . .
. . . dead. But, if he was, what could have killed him? Everyone else who had been sent to the Glade had emerged from the Box alive, so why was this boy different? And what purpose could sending a dead boy up in the Box serve? Was this some kind of sick joke on the part of the Creators? I was just pondering those questions when I heard Rachel, who was standing nearby, give an involuntary gasp. Then, she said three words.
"I know him."
I looked at Rachel for several seconds, wondering what she'd meant when she said she knew the boy, though I doubted she'd be able to elaborate if I asked her. Like everyone else in the Glade, her memory had been wiped, except the Creators seemed to have left a few faint traces in her case, just enough for her to have a "feeling" that she'd been in the Glade before, just enough for her to somehow know the boy who had just been pulled out of the Box. But how did she know him and where from?
My attention was drawn back to the boy as Sonya called for the Medics to come and take a look at him. Seconds later, those gathered around him moved aside to make a path, allowing Flossie to approach her patient; another Medic, Trix, followed close behind her. Flossie and Trix spent a few moments examining the boy, checking his vital signs as he lay on the ground by the Box, completely oblivious to the fact that two teenaged girls were kneeling beside him, listening to his chest. After a while, Flossie straightened up and turned to face the rest of us.
"He's alive," she said. "But he seems to be in some kind of coma, though I can't think what could have caused it. He's breathing OK and his heartbeat's pretty regular, if a little slow. I think we'd better take him to the Dwelling and keep an eye on him. See how long it takes for him to wake up - or not." She looked down at the boy, lying motionless on the ground, his eyes closed, showing no sign of life except for the steady rise and fall of his chest. "I'd like to know what's going on," she added. "Why the Creators sent him here."
"That's something we'd all like to know." It was Sonya who had spoken; she and Harriet had joined Flossie and Trix beside the boy. "There's got to be a reason for it, or why would they have put him in the Box? And why would they send him now and not in a month's time?" Like Flossie before her, she too looked down at the newest addition to the Glade as though she was expecting him to wake up at that very moment and start telling us his whole life story, right up until the moment he was knocked out somehow and placed in the Box. But, given that everyone else in the Glade remembered nothing about their past lives except their names, it was highly unlikely he would be able to tell us much. All the same, Sonya was right about one thing; the Creators wouldn't have deviated from their usual pattern of sending one girl a month up in the Box unless they had a reason for doing so. We could only hope that we would find out who the boy was and why he had been sent here in due course.
In the meantime, a canvas stretcher was brought from one of the sheds where we stored equipment and the boy was loaded onto it so that he could be carried to the Dwelling. Flossie and Trix positioned themselves at either end of the stretcher, preparing to lift it. Just as they were about to do so, Harriet called on them to wait a second, then reached out and eased something out of the boy's fist, something most of us hadn't noticed until that point. A crumpled piece of paper. Harriet smoothed it out as best she could and spent several seconds studying it. As she did so, an expression which said she couldn't believe what she was seeing crossed her face.
"What now?" I heard Tegan say from where she stood nearby. As usual, she was hanging out with her friend, Emily; the two of them had grown up a lot in the past two years and were now approximately fifteen years old, not that we had any way of knowing for sure.
Tegan's words served as a catalyst for us to start bombarding Harriet with questions, everyone trying to talk over each other so that very little of what was being asked (or, rather, shouted) could actually be heard. In the end, Harriet had to yell at us to shut up or she wouldn't tell us anything; it seemed to work because, within seconds, everyone had fallen silent and was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to reveal what was on the paper she had taken from the boy's hand.
Harriet took a deep breath. "It says . . ." A long pause followed, during which several of us started shuffling our feet with growing impatience. We wanted to get on with our usual evening activities, but we also wanted to hear whatever was in the message the boy had delivered to the Glade.
"Well?" said a girl named Louisa, planting her hands on her hips. "Out with it!"
"It says . . ." Harriet said again. She then proceeded to read out loud from the piece of paper she was holding. "He's the last one. Ever."
The boy was quickly transferred to the Dwelling and put to bed in the Changing Room. As its name suggests, this was the room where we placed people who were going through the Changing; its most recent occupant until now had been Beth. It was right at the top of the building we called home, an attic reached by a single wooden staircase, well away from the rest of the bedrooms. Experience had taught us that it was impossible to stop those going through the Changing from screaming, so we had decided they should be placed in the attic where they wouldn't disturb the rest of us too much. This had inevitably led to the attic being nicknamed the Changing Room.
Anyway, the boy was placed in the Changing Room, not because he was likely to disturb anyone, but because we couldn't think where else to put him. He was male, whereas the rest of us were female; it somehow didn't feel right to have him sharing one of the main bedrooms with four or five girls. Perhaps, when he came out of his coma, he would find a sleeping spot outside, as had all of the more recent arrivals, but for now he would stay in the Changing Room. Flossie and the other Medics would keep an eye on him, watch for any changes in his condition. His life didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, but, since Flossie didn't know what was wrong with him, she had no way of predicting the outcome.
That evening, I sat on a bench outside the Dwelling, the spot where I usually hung out with my friends. Flossie was occupied with the boy, but Indira and Christie had joined me, as had Rachel. We were doing our best to make her feel welcome, but there was no denying that there was something different about her. Not bad necessarily, just different. To start with, she had said this place felt familiar and, only a couple of hours ago, she had said she knew the boy. The boy who was apparently going to be the last person ever sent to the Glade. Who was he? And how did Rachel know him? I put both questions to the girl who had, until the boy turned up, been our most recent arrival.
"I don't really know him," she said, shaking her head. "Not his name, I mean. He just looked . . . familiar. Like we were connected somehow. And he spoke to me while he was lying on the ground by the Box."
I wondered if I'd heard Rachel correctly. The boy hadn't moved the whole time he was lying there and he certainly hadn't spoken to Rachel, nor to anyone else. "What do you mean, he spoke to you?" I asked. "He never said a word." I turned to Indira and Christie, who nodded to back me up.
Rachel quickly clarified her previous statement. "I don't mean he spoke to me out loud; I just heard a voice in my mind, a boy's voice. I knew it must be him. He was saying stuff like "It's almost over" and "Things will change soon" - I don't know what that means. But I could hear him quite clearly." She looked at Indira, Christie and myself, her face bearing an expression which said what she was about to say next was very important to her. "You won't tell any of the others, will you? Especially not Beth."
My two friends and I agreed to keep Rachel's secret, at least for the time being. But something told me that wouldn't be for long, that things were about to change around here, though I didn't know how. I just had a feeling Rachel and the boy were going to play an important role in what was to come.
The next day began much like any other in the Glade, which, for myself and the rest of the Runners, meant it was spent in the Maze, mapping the ever-changing corridors. While we were running, Indira and I tried to forget about Rachel and the boy and concentrate on the task at hand. Experience had taught us that the Maze was no place to get careless; one false move and you would end up spending the night with the Grievers, something which no-one had ever survived. So we had learned to keep our minds focused on mapping the Maze, on taking note of which corridors were blocked off today and, most importantly, on what time it was. Some time between half-past-two and three o'clock, Indira and I started to retrace our route, knowing we had to be back in the Glade before the Doors closed.
As we entered the Glade, we saw Yoko and Sarah emerging through the West Door. Yoko, I noticed, was supporting a third person, who appeared to be limping. This in itself was unusual; the Maze was so vast that meetings between Runners who weren't partners were pretty much unheard of. But the girl Yoko was supporting wasn't a Runner, nor was she a Reserve. She was Rachel, a girl who had only been in the Glade for two days, though that was more than enough time for her to be warned that the Maze was forbidden to anyone who wasn't a Runner. Remembering what had happened to other non-Runners who had entered the Maze, I felt my breath catch in my throat. I hurried over to Yoko. "Has she . . .?"
". . . been stung?" Yoko finished my question for me. "No. But we did have a run-in with a Griever; that's how she hurt her ankle."
"But what was she doing in the Maze?"
It was Sarah who answered this time. "No idea. We just found her standing near the edge of the Cliff, staring straight ahead, almost as if she expected to see something."
Bit by bit, the whole story unfolded. Yoko and Sarah had just reached the Cliff which marked the end of Section H when they found Rachel standing there. According to Rachel, she had been drawn towards that spot, as though there was something important about it. Yoko and Sarah, who guessed she must have entered the Maze via the West Door, but had no way of knowing how she got ahead of them, had decided the best course of action was to get her out of the Maze - it was nearly time for them to go back anyway - but, before the three of them could move, a Griever suddenly appeared from the direction of the Cliff. "Like it came out of nowhere," said Sarah. "One minute it wasn't there, the next minute it was." She and Yoko knew from experience that the most sensible thing to do when faced with a Griever was to put as much distance as possible between it and yourself, that you should only attempt to fight it if there was no other option. So they, along with Rachel, elected to make a run for it. Then, Rachel tried climbing the ivy growing on the Maze walls, only to lose her grip and fall awkwardly; that was how she had injured her ankle. Fortunately, she, Yoko and Sarah had lost sight of the Griever by this point.
Remembering that I had been a Medic before I became a Runner, I examined Rachel's ankle. "I don't think it's broken," I announced after a while. "But you'd better stay off it for a couple of days. And no more unauthorised trips into the Maze - you were lucky to get away without being stung."
Rachel's ankle looked like it needed to be bandaged, but I didn't have a first aid kit handy and Flossie was the one in charge of the medical equipment. Leaving Rachel sitting on a bench, I headed back to the Dwelling, where I found Christie and asked her if she had seen Flossie.
"She's in the Changing Room with that boy," Christie replied.
"Well, would you go get her?" I asked. "Rachel's hurt her ankle and it needs to be bandaged." I chose not to mention that Rachel had been in the Maze when she was injured, but I knew it was bound to come out sooner or later; it was impossible to keep anything secret in this place. And why had Rachel been in the Maze anyway? She said something had drawn her towards the Cliff, but what? And how had she, only two days after she was sent up in the Box, been able to find her way to that spot so unerringly that she got there ahead of Yoko and Sarah, two experienced Runners? And then there was the Griever which Sarah had said seemed to appear from nowhere.
"OK." Christie hurried off in the direction of the Changing Room and I sat down on a nearby chair to wait for Flossie. I had only been sitting there for a matter of minutes when someone entered the Dwelling. Henrietta. She was wearing her usual denim overalls and red-and-white checked shirt, but the haunted look she had worn ever since she went through the Changing, was gone, replaced by a look of fanatical determination. And, in her hand, she held a lethal-looking axe, an axe I instinctively knew she planned to use for something other than chopping wood.
"What are you doing?" I asked before I could stop myself. I jumped up and hurried to block her path as she made to head upstairs, not stopping to think about what she might do with the axe in her hand.
"Get out of my way!" Henrietta ordered, still gripping her axe. "It's that fuzzing boy I want! Him and Rachel! They're working for the Creators, both of them! I have to kill them before they get all of us killed! And I'll kill anyone who tries to stop me!"
"Henrietta," I said, though the expression on Henrietta's face told me my chances of getting through to her were slim. "Henrietta, stop and think about it. You don't have any proof that they're helping the Creators." Unless she'd been listening to Beth's wild accusations, but I refrained from mentioning this out loud. "Besides, the boy's been unconscious since he arrived."
"You haven't been through the Changing - I have!" Henrietta tightened her grip on her axe. "It gave me back my memories, but the things I remembered were terrible! I've forgotten most of it now, but I know I saw them, Rachel and the boy, working with the Creators! They've been sent here to trick us into going back to the outside world! But I'm gonna stop them! I'm gonna kill them both!" I had never seen Henrietta like this in the two years I had known her. She was normally quiet and reserved, not given to violent outbursts, and she certainly hadn't said she wanted to kill anyone before. Now, however, something seemed to have flipped inside her, turning her into a maniac who ranted and raved and was quite prepared to use her axe as a weapon against another human being.
I was just wondering if I should make another attempt to reason with Henrietta when Christie came hurrying down the stairs, carrying the first aid kit. "Flossie sent me," she explained. "She can't leave the boy right now and the other Medics are . . ." She broke off when she saw that Henrietta was brandishing an axe. "What's going on?"
"Christie! Get back!" I yelled. Henrietta was capable of anything in her current deranged state; the last thing I wanted was for a Pip like Christie to end up on the wrong end of that axe.
Just then, the door burst open to reveal Harriet, armed with a crossbow to which she had fitted a bolt, ready to fire. She must have seen Henrietta heading in the direction of the Dwelling with an axe in her hand and decided she had to be stopped. There could be little doubt that Henrietta had, after more than two years, finally snapped and, as with Beth, it was something about Rachel and the boy that had set her off. Something about them helping the Creators, though I didn't know if this was true or not. What I did know was that Harriet had obviously recognised the need for precautions when she went to confront Henrietta.
But was it too late to try and make Henrietta listen to reason? My attempt hadn't been very successful, but maybe Harriet, who had her crossbow to back her up, would do better. She certainly gave it a try. "Henrietta," she said, keeping her voice steady and her crossbow poised to fire, "put the axe down now, or I'll be forced to shoot you."
"No!" Henrietta retorted. "If you won't let me kill Rachel and that boy, you're as bad as them! None of you deserve to live!" With that, she made to swing her axe in my direction; I dodged out of the way, only for Henrietta to come after me again, still bearing the same fanatical look she'd had when she first appeared on the scene. She meant to kill me and, once she had done that, she would go after Harriet, Christie and whoever else stood between her and her real targets: Rachel and the boy.
"I warned you," Harriet said. Then, without saying another word, she released her crossbow bolt, catching Henrietta right in the temple. Henrietta, a look of disbelief etched on her face, remained standing for a few seconds, then crumpled to the floor, dead.