Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) (28 page)

Before following him inside, she took a good look at the view from the parapet and felt immediately dizzy. She raised her eyes and saw they were close to the very top of the city. From downstairs, she hadn’t realized how big the opening on the city’s ceiling was. The circular hole was so large she had an unobstructed view of the sky above. She didn’t have a way to compare its size with anything else, but the opening was probably as vast as several stadiums combined.

Standing by her, Grant too was contemplating the structure. “Is it natural?”

Lucas, already on the other side of the door, stepped back and looked up. “Yes. An unexpected gift from Mother Nature.”

“Coming in?” the Priest called.

Lucas led them in first and then closed the door behind. “To the kitchen.”

They walked through a small corridor on which three doors opened, and they found the older man in the last room. “Have a seat.”

Marie and Grant sat at the table, nothing more than a beam on four legs. She noticed the look and hastily thrown-together feel the place emanated. “Have you been here for long?”

“No, he just moved a few days ago,” Lucas answered.

The Priest had his back to them, busy at what looked like a rudimentary stove. “The moving wasn’t so bad.”

“For you it wasn’t. I was the one hauling all your stuff.” Lucas sat on the last vacant stool, saw it was rickety, and stood up again to check one of its three legs.

“You wanted to help.” The older man’s shoulders moved as if he were trying to quit laughing without Lucas being the wiser. It didn’t work.

The younger man turned his eyes to the ceiling. “I really don’t understand why you would prefer to live here alone when you could be closer to the people who care about you.”

The Priest tinkered some more with the stove and then moved out of the way to reveal a teapot and a pan. “You worry too much about me.” His hands full, he walked to the table, balancing the fuming teapot, the pan containing scrambled eggs, and a knit bag hanging from his left little finger. “Your sister’s tea-scones.”

“Can’t believe it. Lorena cooks my favorites for you and not for me.” Lucas took the knit bag from him and arranged the contents on a plate, handling the scones with care.

The smell of baked goods invaded the small room and Marie’s stomach made a sound so loud everybody laughed, herself included. Lucas handed her one of the scones, while the Priest fetched cups for the tea. She ate in silence. “I’ve never tasted anything as good as those scones,” she said when the last crumb disappeared inside her mouth, which elicited a second round of laughs.

“I’ll tell my sister, but I won’t specify you were starved and severely dehydrated.” Lucas reached for the pan and served her a heaving portion of scrambled eggs. “Catch of the day. Gift of our chicken coop.”

“Where are we going to stay?” Grant abruptly asked, playing with the food on his plate. He had stood silently beside her the whole time, seemingly lost in his thoughts. “Not here, right?”

The Priest removed a cloth satchel from the teapot and wrung it with a teaspoon, then slowly poured the tea for everybody. “One day, the City of Men will be a place safe for everybody. We’re working hard to reach that, but we aren’t there yet.”

Marie sipped her tea, her heart heavy. She liked it there. “So?”

The Priest drank from his cup and then answered, “Two friends of mine have built a safe place for mixed couples and they have a teenage daughter—”

Lucas smacked his forehead. “The Sanctuary, of course. Excellent idea.”

The Priest gave him a look.

“What is this Sanctuary?” Grant laid a hand on hers under the table.

“What I said, a place where heterosexual couples can live.” The Priest put his cup on the table. “Have second and third helpings and then we’ll go meet Arias and Guen.”

“Yes, let’s go.” Lucas put away his plate and stood.

Marie and Grant exchanged a glance and then they silently agreed to get it over with. She took his hand and they followed the two men out of the Priest’s apartment. Going down seemed faster, mostly because she knew they would eventually reach larger spaces and she already knew the way.

“I can’t believe they’ve managed to build all of this without Ginecea being the wiser,” Grant whispered when they stopped on a landing to give the Priest time to greet some men.

“I think pure breeds want to believe what they want to believe, and as they treat Vasura as if it doesn’t exist, they could never envision men were capable of building an entire city under their noses. Therefore, they would never look for it.” Marie had been thinking about it since she had exited her room.

“Even though—” Grant looked first down and then up, encompassing the city in its entire length.

“You’ll see in a moment that it isn’t easy to spot the city from the outside.” Lucas smiled at them from their right side.

Marie hadn’t noticed the man was walking so close to them.

“Hopefully, you’ll get to see it today
…
” Lucas commented, his eyes on the older man, who was deep in conversation with a new set of men who had supplanted the first.

Soon it was evident that his fear was funded. If at the beginning they had descended through several layers of the city without a hitch, the lower they went, the more people were interested in exchanging words with the Priest. An hour later, Lucas proposed to escort Marie and Grant by himself. The Priest nodded to him and saluted them with a nod of his head while answering somebody else’s question at the same time.

“It’s always like that?” Grant asked, finally leaving the landing they had been waiting on for the last forty-five minutes.

“It’s normally worse. He barely sleeps at all.” Lucas looked back at the other man and Marie noticed the affection in his eyes and the softness of his tone when he talked about the Priest.

“Have you known him long?” she asked.

Lucas smiled. “All my life.”

Grant frowned at the man’s answer.

“I was born here,” Lucas explained. “My mom and dad still live in the Caves.”

“What are the Caves?” Marie was starting to compare the City of Men to Vasura in terms of social complexity.

“When this settlement was established, heterosexual families were the target of severe harassment. My father and my mother, along with other couples expecting kids, looked for an alternative to the city and found a system of caves big enough to host them. They’ve created a self-sufficient community.” Lucas led the way downstairs without further complications. He nodded once or twice to men who saluted him, but never stopped to talk to them.

“They have no interaction with the city?” Grant asked.

Marie’s eyes went to a mural that, from the vibrant colors, was created by the same artist who had started the one she had seen before. It was another marine scene.

“The Priest makes sure they aren’t severed from the city. He wants cohabitation, not division.” Lucas followed her eyes and said, “That’s a kids’ project. The Priest teaches classes and that’s one of last year’s community projects to bring all the citizens together. Regardless of where they live.” He passed a finger over an octopus’ tentacle.

Marie liked the drawings even more. “But we aren’t going to the Caves… why?”

“The Caves are for families with kids—” Lucas started, but Grant interrupted him.

“The place where the Priest is sending us, the Sanctuary, hosts heterosexual families as well. I don’t understand.”

“It’s true. The Sanctuary was created by Guen and Arias when they discovered they were expecting their daughter. They used to live in the city…” Lucas paused to wave at someone. “Actually, they’re the ones who helped build the city.”

Marie found the children’s signatures on the bottom of the mural. “I still don’t understand why they decided to live by themselves and not join the Caves.”

“It’s the other way around. They built the Sanctuary first. The other families looked for a different solution.”

“Why?” Both Marie and Grant asked at the same time.

“Because as the Priest said, Ginecea’s preconceptions managed to follow us even in the middle of nowhere.” Lucas saw someone walking toward him and muttered, “I’ll build some hidden passageways into this city yet…” Then he left before the man could reach him. After that, the conversation died. He doubled his pace and Marie and Grant had to run to keep up with him.

Finally, they reached the ground level and she was surprised, once more, by the dimensions of the city. From upstairs, she had seen the plazas and the gardens and the shops, but hadn’t realized how big everything was.

“Thirty years in the making and still so many things to do.” Lucas echoed the Priest’s words and they sounded funny in his mouth.

Marie would have loved to spend some time with Grant sitting on one of the benches dotting the gardens. From upstairs, she had seen several secluded spots. Lucas was in a hurry though and dragged them away from the recreational grounds to enter another dim hallway that ended in a small room where a man stood guard.

“Taking them to the Sanctuary,” Lucas announced after briefly saluting the man, who gave Marie and then Grant a thorough look.

“Another one of them—” the man said, keeping his eyes on Grant. “A women-lover.” He spat on the ground. “As if we need those here.”

Marie shivered. She hadn’t liked the man’s tone from the beginning, but then he had gone too far with the insults. Grant’s hand stiffened around her fingers. She squeezed back, trying to silently tell him to let it go, not to confront the man.

Lucas seemed equally annoyed by the man’s comments but only shook his head slightly. “Let’s go.”

“What a waste,” were the man’s last words as a gate was opened and they left the City of Men behind.

Lucas waited until the gate fully closed behind them, probably more to compose himself than for fear of being heard from the inside, and then said, “Don’t ever respond to such provocations. Those people enjoy making you lose your temper and can’t wait to beat you up.”

“It isn’t easy.” Grant looked back at the gate.

“That idiot isn’t worth your anger.” Lucas patted his shoulder. “Last hike of the day for you.”

After that exchange, they walked on a path that wound up in a serpentine motion and led them to higher ground. Marie welcomed the outdoor exercise. The smell from the desert was a balm for her nerves. The man’s cruel words and attitude had unnerved her and she had to breathe in and out for several minutes before she could talk again. When they reached the top of a plateau, Lucas made them turn and look at the valley below.

He smiled and she wondered what he was looking at, then she understood his previous statement about the city not being so easy to spot from the outside.

“Isn’t our city beautiful?” Lucas asked, his eyes bright.

Marie nodded in agreement while Grant whispered, “I’ve never seen anything as beautiful.”

She could barely believe her eyes, but from up there, it was almost impossible to make out the city from the rocky formation lying at the bottom of the plateau. It only took a slight tilt of the head to look at the red rocks from a different angle and discern the layers that composed the city. The structure resembled a multilevel cake where the ceilings of the buildings underneath composed the floors of the next layer. She sat on a flat rock and stood there silent for a few minutes, unable to peel her eyes away from the sight. A thought, almost a prayer, formed in her mind.
Goddess, never let Ginecea here.

Lucas gave them a few minutes and then called them. “The Sanctuary is less than an hour from here, but the sun is getting closer to the zenith and it isn’t safe to stay outside without proper clothes and water.” He muttered something else about having lost enough time in social greetings, but it wasn’t meant for their ears and Marie tuned him out. Her worries lifted with every step.

Hand in hand with Grant, she bathed in the sun. She had always loved to be in the outdoors and never had the chance. The uncertainty about her future a heavy weight on her heart, she had decided to live by the moment and enjoy anything life was throwing at her. From the moment she had left the Institute months ago, nothing had happened the way she had expected. She was quite sure she wasn’t the same Marie who had left the safety of the place where she had been raised to pursue a job she hadn’t even known she would like. She had always dreamed of a different life from the one she had been served since birth. A smile curved her lips before she could suppress it, and then she realized she didn’t want to.

“What is it?”

She opened her eyes to see Grant looking at her, his big green eyes staring at her in wonder. With Lucas a few steps ahead of them, she laughed and then pulled Grant to her, looking for his lips.

“This is the first day of my new life. Forever.” She laughed at her words, joy bubbling inside her heart and making her feel light. “And I want to spend it with you.”

A cry resounded over their heads and Marie looked up. An eagle soared in the sky, wings spread, riding the thermals. Its silhouette projected against the sun. Grant picked her up, and while swirling her around, his lips searched for hers.

“I love you.” He kissed her.

“I love you.” She closed her eyes, returned the kiss, and smiled, feeling as free as the eagle flying high above them. “I will always love you.”