Part 3 (1/2)

”You can't just come crawling up here,” said Samuel. ”It's not normal. And anyway, it's forbidden. Didn't your parents tell you that?” But Samuel was having trouble hiding his curiosity, and for all his attempts to bully this boy invading his world, he really only wanted to know more about him.

”I haven't any parents to speak of,” said Edgar. He had arrived only a few feet below the Highlands, and the two boys could see each other now in the faint light. Edgar smiled and put a hand up where Samuel could take it, but instead Samuel reeled back on his elbows and loose dirt cascaded down on Edgar's head. Samuel hadn't realized how uncertain he was of this stranger until his hand had come so close. He had been trained to view those from below as dirty and unsafe.

”Does everyone in the Highlands have such manners?” asked Edgar. There was good humor in his voice, and this calmed Samuel as he returned to gaze over the cliff's edge.

”Come on, then,” continued Edgar. ”Can't you give me a hand?”

”What's your name?”

”I'm Edgar.”

A moment pa.s.sed in the quiet of the night, and the two boys looked off nervously, wondering what the other was thinking.

”I hope I don't regret this,” said Samuel, finally coming around. After a good deal of hesitation he reached his arm down. Edgar took Samuel's hand and found it to be small and frail. There was no strength in it, and Edgar was sure the two of them would go tumbling off the edge. To Samuel's relief, Edgar let go of his hand and quickly scaled what remained of the cliff on his own. Once at the top, he moved away from the edge, allowing himself a sigh of pleasure at feeling the solid ground beneath his feet.

Samuel shared his name with Edgar but could think of nothing else to say.

”So this is the Highlands,” Edgar observed, drawing in a big breath of fresh air. ”It smells good up here.” Edgar looked around and wished he could see the new world he'd arrived in, but found only the shadows of trees in the distance.

”I live in a grove like that one back home,” said Edgar, pointing toward the shapes of cl.u.s.tered trees he could make out in the dark.

”That's not a grove, it's just a bunch of trees. They don't produce anything. They just sit there and hide what's behind them.”

”What's behind them?” asked Edgar, so curious that he began walking toward the trees.

”No! Don't! You'll be seen... and they won't be happy you've come. You'll get into trouble.” Edgar came back and sat down next to Samuel.

The two boys were at the edge of the Highlands, and neither of them knew what to say or do. Samuel had been told all his life that people like Edgar were good for only one thing: providing for the needs of the Highlands. For his part, Edgar knew only that the people of the Highlands controlled everything in his home, and that they took whatever they wanted. Edgar was awfully short on time, but he wasn't at all sure he could trust this boy of the Highlands. The two had been trained to dislike one another, even though they'd never had the occasion to meet until now.

”Why have you come here?” asked Samuel. There was no accusation in his voice, only genuine curiosity.

Now that he was sitting down after hours of rigorous climbing, Edgar realized how tired and hungry he was. It was almost impossible to imagine that soon he would have to go back down, and he didn't know when he would be able to return.

”I don't know if I can trust you,” Edgar began. ”But I don't have a lot of time, either. I have to be getting back to the grove or I'll be missed, and then Mr. Ratikan will punish me.”

”You're not armed and you don't look like a threat to me,” said Samuel. ”I don't see what I would gain by turning you in. n.o.body needs to know we've seen one another.”

Edgar sensed Samuel's concern and curiosity. ”I don't know,” he said. ”I want to trust you, but I've only just met you.”

Samuel thought a moment before trying once again to convince a boy from Tabletop that a boy from the Highlands could be trusted.

”It's not what you think,” said Samuel. ”Here in the Highlands. I don't like it here. I don't want to tell anyone you've come, don't you see? I want it to be our secret.”

Edgar continued to ponder the matter. It might be that this boy would betray him in the end, but Edgar had come to have the book read to him, and he'd found someone who might be able to do it-someone who appeared trustworthy.

With some hesitation, Edgar told Samuel about the man he thought might be his father, about the many years of climbing by himself, and about the thing he had been looking for but could not find (although he didn't yet say exactly what it was).

Samuel listened carefully to everything Edgar said before making his reply.

”So you've spent your whole life secretly breaking the rules and putting your life in danger, all so that you might find this thing that someone left for you?”

Edgar nodded enthusiastically.

”But why did you come all this way?” asked Samuel.

Edgar didn't answer right away. Could he really trust this scrawny boy who wouldn't last a day in Mr. Ratikan's grove? He couldn't be sure, but he knew he had been very lucky to be discovered by another boy nearly his own age rather than a guard. He decided it was a risk he was willing to take.

”I found what was left for me,” revealed Edgar. He reached his hand into the large pocket sewn onto the front of his s.h.i.+rt, but then waited another moment.

”You don't have to show me if you don't want to,” said Samuel. He was curious, but he didn't want to scare Edgar away. ”If you go back, I'll pretend I never saw you.”

Edgar pulled the book out of the pocket and held it close in the night air. Samuel was immediately enthralled at the sight of it. He loved books, and this one looked different than any he'd seen before. It wasn't like those in the Highlands, which were all large, heavy, and bound in hard casings. This one was small and leathery. It looked old and worn.

”Where did you get that?” asked Samuel, his voice betraying his excitement. But when he took his eyes off the book and looked at Edgar's face, he suddenly remembered the rules.

”You can't read,” said Samuel. ”That's why you've come, to find someone who might read it to you.”

Edgar didn't respond. He looked away into the darkness with a wounded expression on his face.

”It's nothing to be ashamed of,” said Samuel. ”It's not your fault.”

Edgar was unconvinced. ”You don't know how lucky you are, living up here. It must be paradise.”

”It isn't like that,” said Samuel. He hesitated, then added, ”I'll tell you a secret of my own and you'll see.”

Samuel pointed to somewhere in the distance, down the line of the cliff.

”Down that way, about a year ago, my father fell off the edge. Since then my mother hasn't been the same.” Samuel rubbed a spot below his lip, feeling an itch somewhere beneath the surface of his skin. ”Now I spend a lot of time in my room by myself. I don't like to go out.”

This was an important moment for Edgar, for he realized something that he had never thought of before: He was lonely. Sleeping alone in the grove, protecting his secrets, staying away from the other children. He'd had a certain feeling all along but somehow never understood what it was. And there was something more. Edgar understood, for the first time, that there were two kinds of loneliness. One happened because you chose it, and it was all right for a time. The other chose you, and it was never all right. Samuel was living with the second kind, and Edgar felt sad for him.

And yet, there was something in Samuel's story that didn't quite make sense to Edgar. He wondered if Samuel were trying to trick him.

”That's odd,” Edgar mused.

Samuel was taken aback by Edgar's choice of words. He thought it more tragic than odd that his father had fallen to his death.

”Is everyone in Tabletop so kindhearted as you?” Samuel said bitterly. He lashed out easily when his feelings were hurt.

”It's just-well-to be honest, the story is a little hard to believe.”

”What do you mean?”