Crossed (Matched, #2)

by Ally Condie

“Even if you did make it to the Border Provinces, the Society watches the ports. They’d see it if you sent anything to her.” “That’s why...

“An Archivist?” Eli asks, puzzled. “They’re people who trade on the black market,”

There it is, exactly as he said, a settlement in a wider part of the gorge.

The township looks almost exactly the way I remember my father describing his first visit: The sun came down and made it all golden:

“It’s here,” I say. “It’s real,” Vick says. Eli beams. The buildings before us cluster together, then split apart around rockfall or river.

But something is missing. The people. The stillness is absolute. Vick glances over at me. He feels it too. “We’re too late,” I say. “They’re gone.”

I also see signs that they prepared to leave. This wasn’t a rushed departure, but one taken with care. The twisted black apple trees have been harvested;

“Where did they go?” Eli asks. “I don’t know,” I say.

The leaves are long gone but her name still looks beautiful to me.

“Let’s stop here,” Eli says. “They have bunks. We could stay forever.” “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Vick asks him. “The people who used to live here left for a reason.” I nod. “We have to find a map and some food and get out.

only the top of the painting remains—part of a woman’s head. All you can see are her eyes and forehead. “She looks like my mother,” Eli says softly.

“I know where they must have hidden the maps,” Eli says suddenly.

When I was new in Oria, it was strange to watch the people flood out of their houses and workplaces and air trains all at once. It made me nervous the way they moved at the same times to the same places.

He threatened to turn in Patrick for letting me keep it unless I stole some red tablets. Xander must have known then that I was an Aberration.

The lesson was a good one to learn. Do not pretend one place is like another or look for similarities. Only look for what is.

I held out my hand to show Xander the two red tablets I’d stolen. He didn’t think I could do it.

“The caves aren’t down here. They have to be up high.” “I should have known,”

My father told me about the floods. Sometimes the farmers saw the river rising and knew it would happen.

“I always thought it was safer to bury stuff,” Vick says. “Not always,” I tell him, remembering the Hill. “Sometimes it’s safer to take it as high as you can.”

Once we’re there we see the caves. They’re the perfect place to store things—high and hidden. And dry. Vick ducks into the first one.

Near the door I spot marks and footprints where someone—recently—dragged some of the stockpile out of the cave and hauled it away.

Wires. Keypads. Explosives. All Society-issue, from the looks of it.

pulls at one of the rolls of thick plastic. “You know what these are?” he asks. “Some kind of shelter?”

“Boats,” Vick says. “I’ve seen some like this before on the Army base where I lived.”

But Eli calls out to us in a voice filled with excitement. “If you want food, I’ve found it!” he shouts. We find him eating an apple

“It’s all kinds of apples and grain. And a lot of seeds.” “Maybe they stored this in case they had to come back,” Vick says. “They thought of everything.”

I feel admiration for the people who lived here. And disappointment. I would have liked to meet them. Vick feels it too. “We’ve all thought about brea...

Once we’ve finished filling our packs, we find a few more in the storage cave and fill them, too.

Well-organized. Full of boxes. I walk across the room and lift the lid to one of them. It’s packed with books and papers.

This must be the spot where he learned. He could have sat right on that bench. “They left so much,”

“Maybe they had a datapod,” Vick suggests. “They could have entered the information from the books into that.” “Might be,”

The information in this cave is priceless, especially in its original form.

The pencils remind me of the tools I made for writing back in the Borough.

“Look,” Vick says behind me. He’s found a box with maps inside. He pulls some of them out.

“This one,” I say, spreading it out on the table. We all gather around it. “Here’s our canyon.”

“It’s beautiful,” Eli says, touching the map gently. “It’s different from the way we paint on the screens back in the Society.”

Whoever made the map was something of an artist. The colors and scale of the whole thing fit together perfectly.

“My mother taught herself, and then she taught me,”

“Her paintings always vanished in the air,” I tell Eli. “Then how did you know what they looked like?” Eli asks. “I saw them before they dried,” I say. “They were beautiful.”

Judging by the map, there’s more vegetation out there and also another stream, bigger than the one in this canyon.

“I think it will take two or three days to reach the plain. And another few days to cross it and get to the mountains.”

“Too bad we can’t use one of the farmers’ boats and go down it.” “We could try,” I say, “but I think the mountains are a better option.

For some reason the neatly ordered and abandoned books make me feel sad. Tired.

“What do you think? You want to go back down and sleep in the houses? They’ve got those beds.” “No,” Eli says, curling up on the floor. “Let’s stay here.”

Vick and Eli still sleep and I wonder what it was that disturbed me.

“I’ll put your things in mine and you can carry yours empty. It’ll be easier that way. I don’t want the weight to make you fall.”

“Indie,” I ask, “what did you bring with you? What was it you had me hide on the ship?” “Nothing,” she says. “Nothing?” I echo, surprised. “I didn’t think you’d trust me unless you thought I had something to lose, too,”

I shake my head and in spite of myself I start to laugh as I slide off my pack and hand it to her.

You never know exactly what you’re getting into. What will hold and what will give way.

And even if he’s not there, I’ll find him. I’ll go over again and again until I’ve finally crossed to where he is.