Genesis Girl (13 page)

“Wait!” I reach out and grab Seth’s arm like I’m never going to let him go. “All your dad wanted me to do was make you listen. The rest of it was my fault for improvising.” If I go back to the original plan, I’ll still be fine. I can still fix this.

“Improvising?” Seth’s face is all torn up. “You call that improvising?”

“What?” Cal asks. “Call what improvising?”

“Nothing.” Seth sneers. “Nothing important. Nothing worth mentioning.”

“Wait!” I run and throw my arms across the front door. I can still do this. I can make Seth listen, I know it. “Your dad has something to show you. Show him, Cal. Show Seth the truth.”

“What’s she talking about now?” Seth asks.

Cal looks sad, defeated almost. He knows what’s coming next. But he types at his wrist anyway and the video emerges, there in the great hall. Cal blows it up large enough for all of us to see.

I can barely stand to watch. Cal shuts his eyes.

There’s the same scene Seth showed me on
Veritas Rex
. The one that caused the riff, the one Seth posted online to publically humiliate his father. Cal in his bedroom with the naked woman under him. Only this scene is shot from above, from the surveillance cameras in the manor.

There’s Cal and the redheaded woman. There’s seventeen-year-old Seth surprising them both, and then running away. And then you see the woman sit up, totally distraught. The red wig falls off her head, and she’s completely bald underneath. She’s lying there naked, except for her golden pendant.

“It was Mom?” says Seth, his face blank. Then the rage comes back. “
You were screwing my mom? When she was dying?
”

“It wasn’t like that.” Cal furiously shuts off the image. “She was having a good day. She wanted—”

“Stop!” Seth covers his ears. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“You have to hear it, Seth.” I put my hands on his tattooed arms and pull them down so he can listen.

“Your mother was so embarrassed.” Cal stares down at his shoes. “I didn’t want her to die being embarrassed in front of her own son.”

“So you let me think the worst of you? You let me brand you a cheater?”

“I was going to tell you after she passed away,” Cal says.

“After the funeral? But by then I had already posted it.”

“Yes,” says Cal.

They both stare at each other.

“The only good thing,” Cal says, trying to get the words out, “is that it launched your career. Your mother would be so proud of you going viral. She would be so proud of
Veritas
Rex
.” Tears course down his face.

“You’re lying,” says Seth. “She’d be horribly ashamed. She’d hate knowing the world saw that video of her.”

“Well, yes,” says Cal. “That too. But she’d love you anyway. She’d still be proud of you and of what you’ve accomplished. Just like I am.”

Seth crumbles. There’s no other word for it. He absolutely crumbles. And then they’re both hugging and crying, and there’s no need for me anymore.

There’s no need for me anymore.

And the force of that realization hits me like a stone. My work here is done. And I wait for it, because I know Cal’s going to say it. He’s going to say it again like the real rat bastard he is.

“Thank you, Blanca. Thank you so much, sweetheart. You’ve brought my son back to me!” Cal tries to hug me, but I slide away.

He continues talking. “You don’t have to be a Vestal anymore. You can be your own person and think for yourself. I can release you from your pledge.
I release you
!”

See what I mean?

Cal thinks he can free me.

The only way I’ll be happy is if Cal locks me in my cloister from the outside, but he refuses. So I deadbolt the door on my end, but it’s not as good.

Whenever a student at Tabula Rasa was in ethical danger, Headmaster Russell would lock the offender in a sequestered cell. That way, the rest of us were safe from whatever trouble the perpetrator was causing. But it was also helpful for the wrongdoer. There, within his cloistered confinement, he could meditate on our values.

We are beacons of light. We are a sacred fire that won’t burn out. We remind the world there is a better way to live.

When the internment was over, the released student emerged a model of perfect behavior, completely loyal to Tabula Rasa, and ready to rejoin the Brethren. But more than that, every returned individual radiated peaceful contentment. It was as if cloistering was a crucible that burned away every impurity.

Headmaster Russell isn’t here to guard me, so I must be my own warden. I’ll cloister myself until my purity is secure. I won’t leave until Cal gives up this sick idea of releasing me from my contract.

But he won’t.

“Think for yourself,” Cal says through the door. “Do you want to be locked in here? You don’t need me to tell you what to do.”

He’s such a bastard.

“Seth will be here any minute. Don’t you want to see him?”

The wicked part of me
does
want to see Seth. That’s another reason why I need to be locked in here. The only way I could ever hang out with a Virus again is if Cal tells me to. But he won’t.

And then I have to deal with Seth too. “Blanca,” he says. “It’s me. Can I come in?” Seth’s gravelly voice pulls at my heartstrings.

“Ask your father,” I answer.

“He said to ask you.”

I throw myself on my velvet coverlet and push away the memory of that safe feeling I had when Seth’s arms wrapped around me in the sunshine. I muffle my sobs with a pillow.

“I can hear you.” Seth scratches at the door. “Please let me in so we can talk.”

I can’t talk. I can’t come out. I can’t do anything until Cal sees how wrong he is and starts treating me right. If Cal releases me from my sacred Vestal calling, I’ll be worthless.

Worthless!

“Can
I
tell you what to do?” Seth asks. “Will that work?”

“No!” I cry. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Well then, tell me how it works,” says Seth, his voice stifled by the metal door. “I’ve never understood your Vestal shit.”

“It’s not shit!”

“Fine. Tell me your Vestal ways.”

But what’s the use? I’m not supposed to be talking to a Virus anyway.

“Blanca, you have a hard road. I can see that,” Seth says through the door. “In so many ways it’s difficult being you. But I know that you can do it
.
You have everything you need to achieve happiness.”

There’s silence for a moment. Then I get off the bed. I walk over to the door and crouch next to it, holding my cuff up to the metal.

“Can you hear me, Blanca?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to come out of there?”

“Yes,” I say again.

“Then come.”

“I can’t,” I explain. “Not unless your dad tells me to.”

“Fuck it!” Seth pummels the door. “Forget all that crazy Vestal shit and come out of there already!”

“It’s not shit,” I say. “It’s what I am. It’s what I’ll always be.”

I was sealed for life.

Two weeks of cloistering. Two weeks of pacing my room, dusting the bookshelves, and pressing my face against the windowpanes, unable to see anything but the walled courtyard below. Two weeks of hoping Fatima, Beau, and Ethan didn’t know about my disgraced situation. Two weeks of reciting my favorite verse from the Vestal Code of Ethics over and over again.

I am loyal. I am discrete. I follow the rules.
I picture Fatima brushing her hair to the rhythm of Ms. Corina’s voice at night in our dorm. “One hundred strokes, children,” Charming Corina would tell us. Then her saccharine voice would call out, “
I am loyal. I am discrete. I follow the rules.
” Brush. Brush. Brush.

Beau told us that the boys did jumping jacks to the exact same mantra. “
I am loyal. I am discrete. I follow the rules.
” Jump. Jump. Jump.

It doesn’t matter what Cal says to me. I’ll always be loyal to my Brethren.

Now Cal is worried that I’m not getting any exercise. Of course he has every right not to want me to be fat, so when he brings me meal trays, I stop opening the door.

“Damn it, Blanca!” he yells after the second night of this routine. “Open the door!”

Directions, at last! I fling the door open, hopeful and starving.

Cal holds out a wooden tray piled high with roast turkey and mashed potatoes. “Are you going to eat this?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Are you telling me to eat this?”

I look at him, and Cal is as angry as I’ve ever seen him. He is so angry that there are tears in his eyes.

“What do you think?” he asks. “Do you think you should eat this?”

I shut the door with a
click
.

“Blanca!” Cal pounds on the metal door. “Open the door and eat this food!”

I open it up again and sit down on the ground, right there by the tray. I cram the food in my mouth as fast as I can. The sudden rush of nourishment makes me queasy.

“Blanca. Sweetheart. Please.” Cal sits down next to me on the floor. “Please don’t do this anymore. You can’t stay in there forever.”

“Then tell me to leave.” I wipe my face with a napkin.

“You need exercise. You need fresh air. You’ll feel better if you go outside.”

“Tell me to,” I say. “Tell me to, and I will.”

“No.” Cal sighs. “I’m done with that.”

“You’re done with me then, because I can’t live on my own.”

Cal shakes his head. “You don’t have to live on your own. Is that what you think?”

I push away my plate.

“You can live here as long as you want. For the rest of your life! You can be my daughter, Blanca, my real daughter. I’m sorry I didn’t say that a long time ago. It’s what Sophia would have wanted, and it’s what I want too. You can make friends. You can go outside. You can do anything you want.”

“Tell me to,” I say. “Tell me to be your daughter.”

“No. You have to choose for yourself.”

“You know I can’t do that!”

“Do you want to?” Cal wrinkles his forehead.

“Yes.” I wipe my cheek on the edges of my sweater.

“Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Tell me how to help you.” Tears run down Cal’s nose.

“I
have
told you!” I yell. “But you won’t listen.”

“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m trying to help you.”

But he won’t.

The next day, I wake up to the sound of hammering outside my bedroom window. Workers install a ladder into the courtyard.

So now every day I climb down the ladder and get some fresh air. I run around and around the courtyard in circles so I don’t get fat. Because I know that someday Cal is going to want a Vestal again, and I’ve got to be ready.

I am loyal. I am discrete. I follow the rules
. Run. Run. Run
. I am a beacon of light in a world that has forgotten what is important.
Run. Run. Run.

I am a Vestal.

No matter what Cal says.

I don’t recognize myself anymore. Even though I’m wearing my standard-issue whites, I don’t look like me. I don’t know what’s wrong or why this isn’t working, but I know it’s my fault.

It’s been almost a month now, cloistered in my room. I’ve read all the books on my wall, and I’ve written about a thousand letters on my white desk, most of them to Fatima. But I never send any of them.