The Edge of Everything(16)

When Zoe had finished her story, X felt desperate to tell her something about himself, but every thought, every memory, every feeling was stuck in his throat.

He told her this in his stumbling way.

She shook her head.

"I didn't tell you all that because I wanted you to tell me something," she said. "I told you because I trust you."



       
         
       
        

"And I you," said X. "Yet still I stand here, dumb as a stump. Everything I know about myself shames me."

Zoe looked at him so sadly now that X feared he had only compounded her pain.

"Just tell me one thing about your mom and dad," she said. "One tiny thing. It doesn't have to be some huge deal."

X considered this.

"I do not know who they were," he said.

Zoe breathed in sharply. X felt a stab of embarrassment.

He told her about the Lowlands a little. He wondered if she would believe him. When he saw that she did, his shame at who-and what-he was kept spreading. Zoe seemed to know it. She stepped forward and hugged him. He was too stunned by the gesture to hug her back.

"It's time we gave you a name," she said when they pulled apart. "I'm thinking Aragorn-or Fred."

Later, they climbed the hill back toward the Bissells' house, the white drifts sighing beneath their feet. Zoe pointed out the willow where they had buried her father's T-shirt. It was a slender tree, heavy with snow and bending so low to the ground it looked as if it were trying to pick something up. It struck X as a lonely sight. He stepped forward and took the branches one by one in his hand. He shook the snow off gently until the tree could stand upright.

He felt Zoe's eyes on him all the while.



Back in the house, Zoe informed everyone of X's new name.

Her mother laughed and said, "That's not technically a name, but okay." Jonah shouted, "I'm gonna call you Professor X!" And then immediately forgot to.

Zoe's mother steered everyone into the living room, where an awkward silence fell. The silver bowl full of questions had migrated downstairs, and sat on the coffee table now. X cringed at the sight of it. He dreaded telling the Bissells even more of his story. They should have cast him out days ago, and once they knew who he truly was, they would.

Zoe was next to him on the couch.

"You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to," she said softly. "And no one will judge you."

Zoe's mother picked up the bowl and handed it to X.

"Time to find out who we're dealing with," she said.

She did not say it unkindly, but it stung.

X took the bowl and set it on his lap. Immediately, he felt anxious and unsettled, like there was an animal loose in his chest. Even if Zoe had told them everything she knew about him, they knew only the bare beginnings. But that was not the only reason he feared what was about to happen.

He stared down at the nest of papers.

He could not convince his hand to reach into the bowl. He sat paralyzed. 

"Pick one!" said Jonah.

X pulled out a strip of paper. The bowl made a pinging sound as his knuckle brushed against it. He unfolded the strip and stared down at the words in his hand. The letters swam in every direction, as they always did.

He looked to Zoe, helplessly.

She did not understand-but then, all at once, she did. She leaned toward him to whisper a question.

But Jonah beat her to it: "You don't know how to read?"

X shook his head the slightest bit.

"Nor write," he said. "Nor draw, now that I think of it."

X knew that Zoe's mother was gazing at him now. Was she disgusted? Scared? Was she strategizing about how to separate him from her children? He was afraid to turn to her, so he didn't know.

"I can show you how to do that stuff," said Jonah. "It's actually not that hard."

"Thank you," said X.

Zoe took the paper gently from his hands so she could read it aloud. Her voiced quavered just enough to tell X that she was nervous, too.

"'Why'd you get sent to the Lowlands?'" she read. "'Did you kill somebody? Did you kill a whole ton of people-like, with a catapult?'"

"That one's mine," said Jonah.

"We know," said Zoe.

X took a breath.

"I know this beggars belief," said X, "but I committed no crime. I was never even accused of one. I will swear it upon anything you like."

Across the room, Zoe's mother coughed what sounded like an unnecessary cough.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but that actually does-how did you say it?-beggar belief."

"Stop it, Mom," said Zoe.

"Do not censure your mother on my account," said X. "This is her home. She has shown me nothing but kindness."

"Thank you, X," said Zoe's mother.

It was the first time anyone had used his name. Even in the unhappy circumstances, he liked the sound of it. It made him feel centered-present somehow, like a picture coming into focus.

"I read about a lot of religions when the kids' dad died," Zoe's mother said, "and there was something in all of them that helped me. I'm kind of a walking, talking Coexist bumper sticker now." She paused. "And, I'm sorry, but  …  I've never heard of people getting sent to hell for no reason."

Zoe took the bowl from X's lap and set it angrily on the coffee table, where it vibrated noisily.

"This was a bad idea," she said. "We're done."

"No," said X. "Your mother is correct: No one gets sent to the Lowlands without cause."

He turned to Zoe's mother now, and found her eyes.

"But, you see, I was not sent to the Lowlands," he said. "I was born there."

No one spoke as X's words settled. The only sound was Spock and Uhura barking in the distance. X hated speaking the sentence, yet now that he had he felt freer somehow.

Zoe reached into the bowl.

"'Is it weird to be three hundred years old, or whatever?'" she read.

X surprised them all by laughing.

"And whose query is this?" he said, glancing around the room.

"Mine," said Zoe. "I mean, no offense, but you talk like Beowulf."

Jonah giggled.

"Wolves can't talk, Zoe," he said. He turned to X uncertainly: "Can they?"

"I do not believe so," said X. "As to my age, I was but a whelp when a woman we call Ripper began training me to be a bounty hunter. For years, hers was virtually the only voice I heard. I suppose I learned to speak as she does-and she was wrenched from your world nearly two hundred years ago."



       
         
       
        

"So how old are you?" said Zoe.

X heard an urgency in her voice, as if this question mattered more than the others.

"Ripper tells me that I am twenty," he said.

"Twenty?" said Zoe. "For real?"

"Yes," said X. "The only reason I have to doubt her is that she is quite nearly insane."

"Wow, twenty," said Zoe. "If you want, I could help you apply to college."

X recognized this as a "blurt" and let it pass.

Zoe unfolded another question.

"'Where are the Lowlands? What are the Lowlands?'" she read.

"Those are mine," said her mother.

"Good job, Mom," said Jonah.

X sat motionless, trying to compose an answer in his head. Finally, he turned to Jonah and asked him to gather up all the little figures from his room-the soldiers, the animals, the wizards, the dinosaurs, the dwarves-and bring them outside in a basket.

"I am not certain I can explain the Lowlands," he said. "But perhaps I can build them for you."





six


They stood in the backyard, looking at X as if he'd gone mad. He was rolling a mammoth snowball, circling them faster and faster as he did so, the tail of his shimmering blue overcoat taking flight behind him. Uhura chased him ecstatically, as if a game was afoot. Spock lay nearby, eating snow.

"I believe the first query was, 'Where are the Lowlands?'" X said.

The snowball was about four feet tall now, and he had at last come to a stop.

"Yes," said Zoe's mother.

X gestured to his creation.

"This is the earth," he said. "Or as good a likeness as I can produce."

He was warming to his task. The dread he'd felt had been beaten back-replaced by the desire to give a true and clear accounting of himself. They deserved that much, and more, for taking him in when they had every reason to fear him.

"The Lowlands," he continued, "are here."

He thrust his left fist deep into the heart of the globe, breaking it open with such force that Jonah stepped backward and exclaimed, "Holy shit."

X had never heard the phrase-the words didn't seem to belong together-but Zoe's mother found it unacceptable, and told Jonah so.

X had begun to perspire. He removed his coat-the left arm was encrusted with snow all the way up to the shoulder-and draped it over the low branch of a tree. Jonah and his mother, who'd crossed their arms and were shuffling their feet to stay warm, once again looked at him as if he were a lunatic. Zoe merely smiled. It pleased X to think that his ways were becoming familiar to her. 

"The query that followed was, 'What are the Lowlands?'" he said.