"The edge, not mine. No one has ever passed beyond it."
"Yeah, right." Tally shook her head. The dolls probably just marked the territory of the next tribe over. She noticed a bird perched close to one, regarding the doll curiously, possibly wondering if it was edible.
She sighed and adjusted her backpack on her shoulder, striding toward the nearest doll. Andrew didn't follow, but he would catch up with her once his superstitions were disproved. Centuries before, Tally remembered, sailors had been afraid to sail into the deep ocean, thinking that sooner or later they would fall off the edge. Until someone tried it, and it turned out there were more continents out there.
On the other hand, maybe it would be better if Andrew didn't follow her. The last thing she needed was a traveling companion who was bent on revenge at any cost. The people beyond of the edge of world certainly hadn't had anything to do with the death of his father, but one outsider would be as good as another to Andrew.
As she grew nearer, Tally saw more of the dolls. They hung every few meters, marking some kind of border, like misshapen ornaments for an outdoor party. Their heads were at funny angles, she saw — the dolls all hung from their necks, nooses of rough twine around every one. She could understand how the villagers might find the little men creepy, and a slow chill ran down her spine…
Then the tingling sensation moved to her fingers.
At first, Tally thought her arm had fallen asleep, pins and needles spreading from her shoulders down. She adjusted the backpack, trying to restore her circulation, but the tingling continued.
A few steps later, Tally heard the sound. A rumble seemed to come up from the earth itself, a note so low that she could feel it in her bones. It played across her skin, the world trembling around her. Tally's vision blurred, as if her eyes were vibrating in sympathy with the sound. She took another step forward, and it grew louder, now like a swarm of insects inside her head.
Something was very wrong here.
Tally tried to turn around, but found that her muscles had melted into water. Her backpack felt suddenly filled with stone, and the ground had become mush under her feet. She managed a staggering step backward, the sound fading a little as she moved away.
Holding up a hand in front of her face, she saw it trembling; maybe her fever had returned.
Or was it this place?
Tally stretched her arm out farther, and the vibrations in her fingertips increased, itching like an untended sunburn. The air itself was buzzing, growing worse with every centimeter her hand moved toward the dolls. It felt as if her flesh itself were repelled by them.
She gritted her teeth and took a defiant step forward, but the buzzing swarmed into her head, blurring her vision again. Her throat gagged on her next breath, as if the air were too electrified to breathe.
Tally staggered back from the dolls, sinking to her knees once the sound had faded. Tingles still ran across her skin, like a horde of ants swarming under her clothes. She tried to move farther, but her body refused.
Then she smelled Andrew again. His strong hands lifted her from the ground, and as he half-carried and half-dragged her away from the line of dolls, the riot of sensations slowly faded.
Tally shook her head, trying to clear the vibrating echoes. Her whole body was quivering inside. "That buzzing, Andrew … I feel like I swallowed a beehive."
"Yes. Buzzing, like bees." Andrew nodded, staring at his own hands.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she cried.
"But I did. I told you of the little men. I said you could not pass."
Tally scowled. "You could have been more specific."
He frowned, then shrugged. "It's the edge of the world. It has always been this way. How could you not know?"
She groaned in frustration, then sighed. Looking up at the closest doll, Tally finally noticed what she'd missed before. It seemed to be made of twigs and dried flowers— natural materials — but it showed no signs of weathering. All of the dolls Tally could see looked brand new, not like handmade things that had hung for days in a torrential downpour. Unless someone had replaced every single one of them since the rains, the dolls were made of something hardier than twigs.
Something like plastic, maybe.
And inside them was something far more sophisticated, a security system powerful enough to cripple human beings, but clever enough not to harm the trees or the birds. Something that attacked the human nervous system, drawing an impassable border around the villagers' world.
Tally saw it then, why the Specials could allow the village to exist. This wasn't just a few stray people living in the wilderness; it was someone's pet anthropology project, a preserve of some kind. Or … what had the Rusties called them?
This was a reservation.
And Tally was trapped inside.
"You don't have a way across?" Andrew finally asked.
Tally sighed, shaking her head. Her outstretched fingers felt the tingling here, as they had every other spot she'd tried over the last hour. The line of dolls stretched unbroken as far as she could see, and all of them seemed to be in perfect working order.
She stepped back from the edge of the world, and the prickling in her hands subsided. After her first experience, Tally hadn't tested the barrier further than the tingling stage— once was enough for that — but she was fairly certain that all the other dolls had just as much punch as the one that had brought her to her knees. City machines could last a long time, and there was plenty of solar power up there in the trees.
"No. There's no way."
"I did not think so," Andrew said.
"You sound disappointed."
"I'd hoped you might show me…what is beyond."
She frowned. "I thought you didn't believe me, about there being more."
Andrew shook his head vigorously. "I believe you, Tally. Well, not about the airless void and gravity, but there must be something beyond. The city where you live must be real."
"Lived," she corrected him, sticking her fingers out again. The tingling traveled through them, feeling uncannily as if she'd sat on her hand for an hour or so. Tally stepped back and rubbed her arm. She had no idea what sort of technology the barrier was using, but it might not be very healthy to keep testing it. No point in risking permanent nerve damage.
The little dolls hung there, mocking her as they danced in the breeze. She was stuck here, inside Andrew's world.
Tally remembered all the tricks she'd pulled back in ugly days, sneaking out of dorms to cross the river at night, even crashing a party in Peris's mansion after he'd turned pretty. But her ugly skills didn't necessarily apply out here. As she'd learned in her conversation with Dr. Cable, the city was an easy place to trick. Security there was designed to stimulate uglies’ creativity, not to fry anyone's nervous system.
But this barrier had been created to keep dangerous pre-Rusty villagers away from the city, to protect campers and hikers and anyone else who might have wandered out into nature. These dolls weren't likely to succumb to Tally's tinkering with the point of her knife.
The thought of ugly tricks sent Tally's hand to the slingshot in her back pocket. It seemed like an unlikely way to trick the edge of the world, but maybe the direct approach was worth a try.
She found a smooth, flat stone and loaded it up, the leather creaking as she drew it back. Tally let fly, but missed the nearest doll by a meter or so. "Guess I'm a little out of practice."
"Young Blood!" Andrew said. "Is that wise?"
She smiled. "Afraid I'll break the world?"
"The stories say that the gods put these here, to mark the edge of oblivion."
"Yeah, well. They're more like 'Keep Out' signs, or 'Keep In,' I guess — as in keeping you guys in your place. The world goes on for a whole lot farther, trust me. This is just a trick to keep you from knowing it."
Andrew looked away, and Tally thought he was going to argue some more, but instead he knelt and lifted a rock the size of his fist. He pulled back his arm, took aim, and hurled it. Tally saw from the moment it left his hand that the stone was dead on-target. It struck the nearest doll and sent it spinning, the noose tightening around its neck, then the doll spun the other way, unwinding like a top.
"That was brave of you," she remarked.