Still Point Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  May 20, 2061

  Chapter One

  May 21, 2061

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  May 24, 2061

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  May 31, 2061

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  June 24, 2061

  Read More from Katie Kacvinsky

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2014 by Katie Kacvinsky

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhco.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kacvinsky, Katie.

  Still point / by Katie Kacvinsky. p. cm.

  Sequel to: Middle ground.

  Summary: “Maddie returns home to make her final stand against digital school, and uncovers deeply guarded secrets about her family and new truths about herself.”—Provided by publisher

  ISBN 978-0-544-35296-4

  [1. Government, Resistance to—Fiction. 2. Science fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.K116457St 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013050207

  eISBN 978-0-544-35296-4

  v1.0914

  May 20, 2061

  Before I left Eden, Elaine warned me to be careful. She said I have a lot of water in my personality and it’s a gift, but it’s also a challenge to control. You can’t tie water down. Water can be difficult to love too, because it moves around anything trying to contain it. It can overflow its banks and lose its sense of home. She told me to use my water to my advantage, but to be aware of what I can destroy. She said not all obstacles are meant to slow me down or block my path. They’re simply there to redirect me.

  Here’s the advantage of being water: It’s forgiving and ever-changing and unpredictable and strong-willed. It’s stronger than rock; it can wear it down or move it or break it, or slowly seep through the surface. It can flow around anything and through anything or under or on top. It can change into so many forms. It can be so calm it’s invisible, so wild it’s uncontainable. It can smother fire with one spray.

  But here is the weakness: People with water are susceptible to drought. We can run dry, and when we do, we shrink, until something replenishes us. We rely on others. We need love and support. When we’re not fed, we become a bit calloused and cracked, like dry skin. We wither, we wrinkle, and we can disappear inside ruts, until we flow again.

  People are like their own ecosystems, little planets made up of islands and climates and forecasts. Some of us carry jagged mountain peaks, and some of us carry lakes. It makes me think about other elements, how we all carry something inside of us. I think Justin is made of so much fire, that he is so inspiring and reckless and impressionable and creative. My dad is made mostly of earth—tough, impenetrable, stubborn, and inflexible. My mom and Clare are light like air, always trying to see the best in others, always stirring things when they walk into the room, trying to bring people together and accept every perspective.

  Once we know our elements we know our strengths, but that is nothing compared with our weaknesses. Our strengths define us, but our weaknesses limit us. It’s a constant tug of war in ourselves.

  But you need all of these elements in order to live. You can’t cut off the earth and wind in your life, just because their movements conflict with yours—that wouldn’t sustain anything for very long. They’re all necessary. The trick is to figure out a way for all of them to combine. I need earth and air in my life in order to be happy. At least, in order to be whole.

  That’s why I’m ready to make this decision.

  There’s only one problem. I didn’t get to talk to Justin and explain that I’m not choosing my family over him. I know where I’m headed; I’m just making my own travel plans instead of being handed the directions. I hope he understands.

  Chapter One

  “Home, sweet digital home,” I said as Scott’s car exited the highway when we hit signs for Corvallis. Dark gray clouds gathered in masses above us, competing with patches of blue sky where the sun shot through. I looked up at the sky and felt like my future was as ambiguous as the clouds, constantly changing formation, impossible to nail down. Just when I think I can pinpoint a shape or direction, the wind switches course, always to leave me staring up at the clouds wondering what I see.

  “You’re the one that wanted to come back here,” Scott reminded me, his tone sharp. “Was the detention center not enough torture for six months?”

  I looked out the window and focused on the blue sky, even as fat raindrops hit the windshield. We stopped for a train, the only other movement on the barren street. We had driven for hours with hardly any conversation, and I was tired of trying to avoid the tension that was brewing.

  “Scott, let’s play a game called brutal honesty. I prefer it to the silent treatment.” I grinned at him, but his jaw was set tight. “You go first,” I nudged.

  His hands were tight on the steering wheel as he turned a corner. We passed through a neighborhood so quiet that even the trees looked like they were sleeping, their green leaves as still as a photograph.

  “Sorry I’m a little annoyed you’re choosing your dad over us,” he said. “We’ve helped you out for the last six months, and now you’re bailing on us. And you didn’t tell anyone back in Eden what you’re doing. It’s like you’re running away.”

  I chewed on my fingernail and took a long breath. I tried to keep my voice light. “I didn’t want people to try and stop me,” I said simply, and the car accelerated. I closed my eyes and embraced that feeling, how the tires collided with the road when we moved, how friction needs to be there to propel anything forward. That’s what I was about to become—the friction in my family.

  “I get it—you’re going behind enemy lines. Good for you. But you don’t need to prove yourself anymore.”

  “That’s not why I’m doing this,” I said.

  “Then why are you, exactly?” he asked, turning onto my street. My shoulders tensed and my knees instinctively moved away from the door, as if the car were my shell and I was slowly receding inside.

  I studied Scott’s profile, his black glasses sliding down his nose and his black hair gelled into hard spikes on top of his head. “I don’t want my family to be the enemy lines. I can’t accept that. I need to figure out what’s going on with my dad, and he’s not going to tell me through a screen. He wants to play a game, so I’m going to suit up.”

  “Your dad is a world-class manipulator. What if he forces you to join his side?”

  I looked down at the bird tattooed on the inside of my wrist. “If a detention center couldn’t break me, I don’t think we have to w
orry about my dad,” I pointed out, and Scott couldn’t argue.

  “How do you plan on getting in touch with Justin?”

  Good question. I tapped my foot on the floor. “Justin will find me,” I said. “He’ll figure it out.”

  “Not when it looks like you’re turning on us. Did you even talk to him about this?”

  “I don’t need his permission. He’d support me either way. That’s what friends do,” I hinted.

  “Not if they think you’re making a stupid decision.”

  Every once in a while I had a technology relapse, where I missed a function from my digital life. Like putting people on mute, or switching them off, or deleting their existence entirely. You hardly ever got annoyed in that life, because you didn’t have to put up with people. You didn’t have to learn patience. If someone said something you didn’t like, you could delete their existence. People became that inconsequential—they were just a funny app or an attractive image you could swap updates with.

  You can’t do that in the real world. You need to be more patient and forgiving and accepting of people’s flaws. You can’t be as choosy about your friends. But you also become less selfish, more understanding. Liking people exactly like you isn’t very rewarding. It doesn’t challenge you. My mom used to tell me you should love the people who are hardest to love. I think she was talking about my dad, but you can expand that to people in general.

  I shrugged off his comment because I knew Scott looked at life through a narrow lens. You were with him or you were against him. He didn’t understand a middle ground.

  He pulled up to the curb and pointed down the street. “My apartment’s two miles from here. You can stay with me and Molly if you want. You can meet with your dad in person but still have some distance.”

  I thought about Scott’s offer. Everyone seemed to want to keep me under their supervision.

  I shook my head and clutched the door handle. “I don’t want distance,” I said. “Distance is the problem.” I opened the car door and grabbed my duffel bag off the floor. “See you around.”

  “Not likely.”

  Scott was already gunning the accelerator before I could swing the door shut. I watched with a frown as his car disappeared. When you agree to help one person, you ultimately have to disappoint someone else; it’s like a karmic law. I just had to trust myself. That’s where it needed to start. That’s why I knew Justin would understand.

  I blinked down at the turf grass next to the road, so immaculate it looked like footsteps had never grazed its green peaks. I looked past the crest of plastic blades shining in the sun, wet from the short burst of rain, and my eyes traveled slowly up the four front steps, stopping on the black front door of my parents’ house. Doors are supposed to be welcoming. The silver sloping handle shined like it had been polished, twinkling in the sun. But there wasn’t much welcoming about it. It felt like a target I needed to try to hit, and my aim was always off.

  You can feel the energy in a place. It has a lightness or heaviness; it presses on you or it lifts you up. A place has its own mood, inviting you in or casting you out. This place felt sad, isolated, even a little regretful. I was afraid that if I stood and listened closely enough, I would hear a low whine seeping through the windows.

  I absorbed the quiet sounds of the neighborhood and tried to reinsert myself into this life, like a plug into an outlet. The wind blew through the plastic leaves, a familiar clatter, and trains wheezed in the distance, the electric start and go of breaths. A plane buzzed somewhere in the sky. They were all artificial noises. I waited for something to happen—for a siren or a crash or a shout. Maybe I was waiting for someone to stop me so I’d have an excuse to turn back. But I never chose the easy path. That seemed to be my motto in life.

  I had lived here for seventeen years, so why did I feel like such a stranger? It’s an odd feeling to realize you don’t belong where you came from.

  I knew that the longer I stood there, the more I’d second-guess myself, which is a waste of time. I learned that once you make a decision, you need to see it through. If you don’t, you’ll lose faith in yourself, and that’s when you’ll let other people make decisions for you. Now I knew better.

  I tossed my bag over my shoulder and took my time walking to the front porch, my gray tennis shoes brushing the smooth stone walkway. I searched my heart for an attachment to this place, for memories to pull me in and hold me tight. I waited for the feeling of home to swell up inside me like a reassuring, steady pulse. But I didn’t feel anything, just a wave of detachment. On the front porch, two wicker rocking chairs greeted me beside a small wrought-iron table. On the table stood a flowerpot full of yellow plastic geraniums, pale and motionless, beautiful in a frozen way. Doubt crept her fingers up and down my spine. I looked once more down the street and envisioned Scott’s car. I could still change my mind.

  Familiar barks filled the silence. At least someone would welcome me home. I heard footsteps inside, and my mom threw open the front door and stood behind the screen, shocked, her mouth frozen in a circle. She was dressed in a pair of black leggings with a long gray tunic sweater. Her brown hair had light caramel highlights. I had always been impressed that even though my mom hardly ever left the house, she still made it a priority to get dressed every day, to style her hair, even put on the small details of earrings and bracelets. I was happy to see she hadn’t given this up. It made me feel like there was still hope of bringing her closer to my world.

  “Maddie,” she said, her voice so light it was almost a laugh.

  Baley, our chocolate Lab, scratched at the door, and my mom opened it before the dog tore a hole in the screen. Baley scooted around her and almost knocked me over when she lunged at my stomach with her enormous paws. I knelt down and caught her around the shoulders because I needed to hug somebody. As soon as I stood up, my mom threw her arms around me, almost greedily, as if she’d been starved of physical contact. I leaned against her and she was laughing and it made me laugh but then I heard a choking sound and her back was shaking. I held on while she cried into my shoulder. I felt terrible in that moment, terrible that I’d stayed away for so long, terrible that I went almost a year without her. I couldn’t get that time back, but all my doubts about coming home vanished and made room for solid confidence, so solid that both of us could lean on it.

  “I’m glad you’re happy to see me,” I said, and she pulled me away, and even though there were streaks of tears on her face, these narrow canals running down her cheeks, her eyes were shining.

  “What are you doing home?” she asked.

  “I want to take Dad up on his offer.”

  She opened the screen door, and we walked inside. Baley clung to my side, and I nearly tripped over her.

  “You’re willing to work with him?” She studied me. “Or are you here to spy on him?” She knew me too well. A door creaked open down the hall.

  “I’d like to hear the answer to that myself.” My father’s voice streamed into the room like a cold front pushing over a warm front. His dress shoes tapped against the laminate floors, and he appeared in the foyer. He looked more skeptical than relieved to see me, but he still smiled.

  “You never informed me you were coming home,” he said.

  Nice greeting, I thought. “Sorry,” I said. “I figured it was a standing invitation, or did I need you to sign a permission slip first?” I mentally kicked myself. It was too easy to spar with my dad, and anger wouldn’t get us anywhere. I needed to start over with him. I needed to have a clear head.

  He ushered us all into the kitchen, and my mom grabbed a couple of mugs out of the cabinet for coffee. He sat down next to me at the table. It was the closest I had been to him in a year, and it made the hair on my arms stand out, my own tiny quills jumping up in protection. I studied his face—it seemed to never age. His high cheekbones arched above his broad mouth, so defined that they looked chiseled. I was so busy looking at him, I didn’t realize he was giving me the same physical critiqu
e. He always studied me a little too carefully, like he was looking at me through a magnifying glass for any cracks or imperfections—for something he could fix.

  “You put on some weight,” he noted. Normally this isn’t something a girl wants to hear, but in my case it was a compliment. I looked like myself again. I was healthy.

  “Elaine fed me really well,” I said. “Did you know we eat three meals a day in Bayview, all together at the table, all homemade?”

  “Is that right?”

  “Have you had home-cooked food lately?” I asked. “You can actually taste it. There are even grocery stores, here in Corvallis, but most people don’t know they’re out there because local stores can’t compete with online advertising.”

  “Maddie—”

  My mom shot me a warning look that told me I’d already overstepped my obedient boundary, and I pressed my lips together, but Dad looked like he was enjoying my lecture.

  “Thanks for the tip,” he said, and sipped his coffee. I pressed my palms down firmly on the table.

  “Dad, you told me if I came home, we could talk. Is this what you call talking?”

  He looked at me. “You want to talk about grocery shopping?”

  “You agreed that if I came home, we’d work together.” I searched his face for any hesitation. “If that offer doesn’t stand, you need to tell me right now. Don’t waste my time. Are you really willing to work with us?”

  My mom stood against the kitchen counter, studying my dad in a way that surprised me; she seemed to be wondering the same thing.

  He let out a slow breath and took another sip of coffee. I sat back in my chair. Okay, so maybe I could give my dad five minutes to accept that I was home before I assaulted him with ultimatums.

  “I came home because you’re my family,” I told them. “I don’t want to build a wall and have to live in one world or the other. That’s not an option. That’s not any kind of answer to this.” To my dad I said, “You spend your life building walls.”