Burn (31 page)
She feels sick. Yes, she wants to be the one to marry Partridge, of course. But not this way. Not with all of this pomp and grandeur, while knowing how the people on the outside scrape for basic survival. It turns her stomach. She says, “I think I’m going to have to go lie down for a bit.”
“What?” Chandry says. “No, no. She isn’t here yet!”
“Are we expecting someone else?”
Vienna says, “It’s supposed to be a surprise.” She rolls her eyes.
Lyda becomes alarmed. “Who are we expecting?”
“Let me check on her progress.” Chandry rushes to the front door to talk to the guards.
Mr. Culp picks up an empty candlestick holder. “I like this!” he says. “Quite nice!”
Lyda walks over to Vienna. “Tell me who’s coming.”
“I can’t.”
“Please.”
“Don’t you get how surprises work?” Vienna says.
“I don’t like surprises,” Lyda whispers.
“She’s coming!” Chandry says. “She’s coming right now!”
The door is wide open, and the guards stand on either side of it. Chandry steps back and opens one hand dramatically as Lyda’s mother appears in the doorframe.
“Mrs. Mertz!” Chandry says, half-proud and half-relieved.
Lyda’s mother looks small and disoriented. She stands there and blinks. At first, she glances around the room, unable to look at Lyda. This is how it was at the rehabilitation center too. In fact, that was the last place she saw her mother. She was so cold to Lyda, hiding behind her official role as a clinician. But she isn’t in that role now. She’s also wearing a dress—one of the dresses she’s worn to church for years.
“Mom?” Lyda says.
Lyda’s mother steps forward. She lifts her gaze until finally she meets Lyda’s eyes, crimping her lips and drawing in her breath as if bracing for something—what does she expect? What has she been told? Does she know Lyda’s pregnant?
Lyda doesn’t know if she’s supposed to hug her mother or not. And her mother seems equally unsure. “Lyda, dear,” she says softly.
And Lyda feels a rush of love that seems to buoy her. She’s missed her mother more deeply than she let herself admit. She sets her pocketbook down carefully on an end table, keeping Freedle safe and sound, and walks to her mother quickly, wrapping her arms around her neck. Her mother stiffens but then pats her back. “I didn’t think you’d come to see me. I wasn’t sure you even knew I was here.”
“I know everything,” her mother says. But Lyda isn’t sure what version of
everything
she’s been fed.
Lyda squeezes her mother’s hands. “Let’s go talk—just the two of us,” Lyda says and then turns to Chandry, Mr. Culp, and Vienna. “Do you mind if we have some privacy?”
“No, no!” Lyda’s mother says. “It’s okay. There’s no need to disrupt the get-together.” She walks to the television. “It’s going to be a lovely event for all of us to share”—she looks at Lyda—“and
accept
.”
Lyda feels like she’s been slapped. Her ears are ringing. The nursery. She wants to retreat to the nursery, feel the weight of a spear, the ash on her skin. Those things are real. Her mother’s retribution is always made of air. She can’t ever pin it down. She can’t ever accuse her of anything concretely. But now Lyda knows why she’s here: to tell Lyda that her relationship with Partridge is over. This wedding isn’t a fake. It’s going to stand. There’s no reversing it—only accepting it. Her mother is here to help her accept this ending.
Lyda wants this to be a dream. She wants to wake up—gasping for air. But it isn’t a dream.
She can’t speak. She reaches out and grips the back of a chair.
“Are you going to be okay?” Vienna says. “You don’t look good.”
“It’s starting!” Chandry shouts and turns to the TV. She pulls a tissue from her purse and presses it to her cheek. “Here she comes! Oh my!”
“Doesn’t she look nice!” Mr. Culp says.
The whole little Culp family huddles together in front of the glowing screen, with Lyda’s mother standing in front of Mr. Culp. There’s orchestral music blaring from the television. Lyda imagines Iralene in a long white gown, the audience rising up.
They’re all gaping at the television except Lyda’s mother, who’s looking at Lyda now, gazing at her. “Come and watch,” she says.
Lyda shakes her head.
Her mother says with no anger in her voice—just resignation—“Lyda, don’t be stubborn. This is what you must do.”
Lyda says, “No, thank you.”
Her mother walks over to her. “Lyda,” she says softly, “It’s going to be okay. You and the baby. All of it. I will be here for you now. This is my new role.”
“Is it a paying gig? How much did they offer you?” Lyda says sharply.
“What? Lyda, you know that I want to be here. Where else on earth would I more want to be than at your side?” She reaches out for Lyda’s hand, but Lyda pulls it from her.
“I have mothers,” Lyda says. “I have so many mothers out there I don’t need you. Do you hear me? I don’t need you at all.” Lyda turns, scoops up her pocketbook—Freedle safely within it—and walks down the hall.
“Lyda! Don’t do this!” her mother shouts, running after her.
Lyda opens the nursery door, but before she can shut it, her mother jams her body into the frame. She sees the wrecked crib, the pile of spears, the wood shavings, the knife, the stack of ripped baby books, the bowl of ash—all of it lost in the swirling cinders projected by the small orb sitting in the center of the room. “My God. Lyda.”
“Get out. This is for me. It’s mine alone.”
Mrs. Mertz locks her eyes on Lyda. “What have you become?” Her mother stumbles backward, catching herself on the wall, leaning against it, breathing heavily.
Lyda shuts the door and locks it. She slides down, presses her back to the door, and sits on the floor.
What have I become?
She opens her pocketbook and pulls out the swirled nest of the hand towel where Freedle is sleeping.
“Freedle,” she whispers. “How did we get here?”
Freedle’s eyes blink open. He stretches his frail wings. She wants to dig through her maternity dresses and pull out the armor. She wants to feel encased, protected.
“How do we get back out?” she says.
And then suddenly she feels like her chest is filled with rage. She finds a seam in the side of her dress, grips the dress in her fists, and rips its skirt all the way to her waist. She takes more fabric and rips it, rips more and more, until it’s shredded.
“My mothers,” she whispers. “I miss my mothers.”
M
other Hestra walks Pressia to the periphery of the woods. There, a few mothers work quickly. They’ve pulled out catapult machinery and baskets of robotic spider grenades.
“They’ll lay down cover for you,” Mother Hestra says. “It’s the best we can do.”
“Did you give her warning? Special Forces are different out there now,” one of the mothers says to Mother Hestra.
“I know,” Pressia says. “I’ve seen ’em.”
“The ones like Dusts?” Mother Hestra asks.
Pressia shakes her head. “What? Like Dusts? How?”
“No time to explain. You’ll see,” one of the mothers says, loading a catapult with a grenade.
The other mothers move in around her. They explain what’s going to happen.
“We’ll attack from here.”
“You walk the woods’ edge that way.”
“And we’ll distract.”
“Okay,” Pressia says.
Mother Hestra hands her a knife. “I don’t think it’ll be of much use, but at least you’ll have it.”
Pressia thanks her and slips it between her belt and the waist of her pants.
Mother Hestra backs away from her, gives a wave, and then turns to go.
“Wait,” Pressia says.
But Mother Hestra starts running into the woods. And in a few quick strides, she and her son are lost in the trees and the brush. Gone. Pressia wanted another moment—one more good-bye. But she realizes nothing would have made this easier. She squints at the Dome and then starts walking the edge of the woods. She just has to manage not getting shot on the way to the Dome, and then hopefully she’ll have a chance to say who she is, her connection to Partridge, and be brought in—as a prisoner? Her goal is to be taken in alive.
She hears something in the woods—the crunch of leaves. Are the mothers following her? Do they not trust her? They could decide at any moment to pull their offer and attack her. She starts walking faster. It could be a Beast or Special Forces. It could be anyone, anything. She shouldn’t run, because she needs to pace herself, but she sees something—a shape darting between distant trees. She starts running, just inside the tree line. She can’t expose herself—not until the mothers fire their first shot.
Through the limbs of passing trees, she sees the motion of a gray shape, then a twisted horn. Finally, she sees a clearing and a sheep, standing stock-still, staring at her with engorged eyes. The sheep has gray wool and a long twisted horn that curls over his skull. He’s lost from his herd, maybe the only one still alive. He bleats at her with a voice as sad and desperate as the boy—the soldier—with the stumped arm in the city, shot dead. The sheep paws the wet ground as if making a demand. One back hoof is gnarled, nearly useless. He’s gaunt and his ribs protrude. Starving.
She walks toward him. His teeth jut out; his jaw is crooked. He bleats again, showing a bluish tongue. She reaches out her hand. The sheep inches closer to sniff it. She reaches up and touches the tuft under his chin. “It’s okay,” she whispers. He nuzzles her fingers.
Beautiful, alone, starving. She can’t help him. She couldn’t save Wilda either. She isn’t sure that she can save herself.
And then there’s an explosion. The sheep jerks its head up and then darts off, bounding deep into the woods.
It’s time. The mothers have started their barrage. Pressia walks toward the barren land she has to cross and stands behind a tree. She sees the smoke and the rising dust and ash from the first grenade. The clouded air will help provide cover.
She looks at the incline standing before her—at the top of it, the Dome itself.
And then the hill starts to shift. Bodies emerge, covered in dust and ash. Where did they come from? How long have they been there? They’re lean boys, lumbering toward the explosion, and then just as quickly as they appeared, some disappear again, becoming one with the ground—fully camouflaged. The mothers send out another grenade. It hits the wet ground and then, after a few seconds, explodes. The boys start firing into the woods, but she can’t even see any of them. Occasionally, the dirt seems to move, but then nothing.
She has to start running. The mothers have already wasted two grenades. She scans the ground and takes off sprinting. Like the sheep, she thinks. Like the sheep who’s lost the herd.
The grenades, though far off to her right, are deafening. They send up gusts of smoke and ash. One explodes and she’s sure it’s hit nothing, but then from the ground there’s a spray of blood and flesh. Her grandfather once explained land mines to her, and it’s as if the boys themselves are living land mines—ever shifting invisible land mines.
She keeps running as fast as she can, hoping that if she gets to the Dome, she’ll have enough breath in her lungs to explain who she is.
I’m Partridge Willux’s sister. Tell him Pressia is here.
But then the ground disappears under her feet, and she falls into a shallow pit.
The dirt dents and gives and crumbles around her as she tries to get up.
An elbow.
An arm.
A gun lodged in the arm and pointed at her.
A face freshly punctured and embedded with glass—so new that there are fresh scabs crystallized around each piece. It’s a boy’s face. He has a crooked nose and dark red lips, and when he smiles—why is he smiling?—she sees the worst part. He’s still wearing braces—though crusted with dirt.
I’m Partridge Willux’s sister. Tell him Pressia is here.
She thinks these words but realizes she isn’t saying them. The wind is harsh. The air is thick. The boy’s face—his smile—appears between swaths of smoke.
“I got one. I got one,” he says in a low whisper. “I got one.” It’s as if he’s so proud of himself in this moment he wants to enjoy it. Killing her would end it all too quickly. He glances around and says more loudly, “I got one!” He’s looking for a witness. What’s the point of killing her if no one sees it?
She coughs and finally sputters, “I’m Partridge Willux’s sister.”
His face contorts. He doesn’t understand.
“Don’t kill me. Take me in. Take me to Partridge. I’m his sister.”
He shakes his head. “No sister,” he says. “No daughter.”
And he’s right, of course. No one in the Dome knows that Willux’s wife had a child out of wedlock, much less a girl named Pressia.
“I’m his half sister,” she says, trying again. “Please. Take me in as a prisoner.”
“Take no prisoners,” he says. “Take no prisoners!” He shoves the muzzle of the gun under her chin.
“This is a mistake,” she says, swallowing hard. “Don’t do this.”
He softens for just a minute, taking in her face. But then his eyes glance over the doll head and he knows she’s a wretch like all the rest—and isn’t he part wretch too? He smiles again. He’s going to enjoy killing her. She clenches her eyes, waits for the bang.
But then the boy is gone, his body slammed into the ground by someone much bigger and broader.
She sees the bent metal prosthetic first, and then Hastings’ face comes into view.
He came after her! She didn’t want him to, but damn—she’s glad he did.
He pounds the soldier into the ground with his prosthetic—so hard this time she’s sure the leg will snap. But it doesn’t. He grabs her hand and says, “Let me take you in.”
“They know you’ve crossed over, though, don’t they? You’ll be seen as a traitor.”
“I’m taking you in,” he says, and he grabs her arm and sweeps her up to his chest. He holds her so tightly she can barely breathe.
He runs jaggedly but fast. The ground keeps exploding. The air is choked with dirt and death.
And finally she sees the white of the Dome before them. How does it stay so white in all of this dark soot? She tells him to stop. “Let me down. I’ll go the rest of the way!”
