Once (24 page)

Reginald pressed his lips together in thought. “Are you sure you want to print this?” His dark eyes met mine. The King circled around us, looking over his shoulder to review the content.

I breathed out, trying to slow the pounding in my chest. “I am,” I said finally.

Reginald smiled and passed the paper to the King. “It's lovely,” he declared. He bowed slightly to show his respect. “The people will be delighted to read this in tomorrow's paper.”

THE GOLDEN GENERATION WAS BEING HELD IN A COMPOUND
northeast of the main road, a closed-in section of the City that had once been called a country club. Its great lawns had been converted to gardens and the large ponds were used as reservoirs. Massive stone buildings now housed the children's bedrooms, dining hall, and school. We pulled up the long, curved driveway. Soldiers stood along the perimeter, their rifles in hand.

“Princess Genevieve!” A voice called out behind me as I started toward the glass doors. “Princess, over here please!” Reginald's photographer got out of the car behind us, a camera in her hand. She clicked it incessantly, catching me as I ascended each step, the King trailing just a few feet behind.

I couldn't manage a smile. Instead I stared into the lens, thinking of Pip and Ruby and Arden. This visit had been my suggestion. I wanted to see where the children stayed, to meet them, to know the conditions of their everyday life. A big piece would run in the following day's paper about the former student turned Princess—the girl who understood the volunteers more than anyone else. I had planned to give Reginald another quote, another message for the dissidents. And yet now that the day was here and the stone building was right before me, it was difficult to take even one step.

“I think you'll be pleased,” the King said to me when we reached the doors. Reginald followed behind us, along with three armed soldiers. “The sacrifices made by those girls have not gone in vain. The children are being raised properly.”

I tried to smile, but a queasy, unsettled feeling rocked my insides. It had been three days since my address ran in the paper. People had written in praising my words and expressing enthusiasm about my upcoming union with Charles. As each letter was delivered to the Palace, the King softened a bit more. His laugh was heard more throughout the halls. His words were kinder, more enthused, as he relaxed into his lie. Caleb was still in custody. I was going to marry Charles. All was right in his world.

“We've been expecting you, Princess,” a woman in a white shift dress said. She was only a few years younger than the Teachers at School, her thin skin like crepe paper. A tiny New American crest was pinned to her collar. “I'm Margaret, the head of the center.”

“Thank you for having us,” I said. “I spent my whole life at one of those Schools. I needed to come here to see this for myself.” I stepped inside the marble hall, its walls echoing with the sounds of small children. In the foyer, a three-foot-high bouquet sat on a giant round table, its blooms exploding out in all directions, filling the air with the scent of lilies.

She pressed her palms together as she walked me to a door on the back wall. “We've worked hard these last years to ensure the children are well taken care of, provided with the best doctors. We make sure they receive proper exercise and eat a balanced diet.”

The King and Reginald hovered behind me as I looked into the wide hall. Reginald withdrew his notebook from his suit pocket and jotted something down. Small children were huddled together on the floor, pushing around plastic cars and stacking blocks in short towers. In the corner a woman Margaret's age sat with a little girl whose face was swollen and tear-streaked, rubbing her back while she cried.

“This is our largest playroom,” Margaret said. “It used to be one of the reception rooms. We keep the children here during the day in the hopes that citizens will come by and have a look. With a little luck many of these children will be adopted in the coming months.” A girl with golden pigtails waddled over, her bottom thick from her diaper. She peered up at us with big sea-green eyes.

“This is Maya,” Margaret offered. “She's two and a half.”

I looked into her face, at her small, sweet nose and her flushed chubby cheeks. I touched her hand, and her tiny fingers curled around mine, her smile revealing two front teeth. “She's precious, isn't she?” Margaret asked. Behind us I heard the click of the camera.

As I stared into her eyes I could think only of Sophia in that awful room, her gaze meeting mine as I peered through the dirt-caked window. I thought of the girl who had cried out, her wrists straining against the leather, until the doctor had silenced her with a needle. Every one of these children had come from a girl just like my friends. Maybe Maya's mother had sat beside me in the School dining hall. She might have been one of the girls Pip and I had admired, taller than the rest, her glossy ponytail swinging back and forth as she strode by, a tray in her hands.

“We're hopeful that even those who aren't adopted will grow up happy and healthy, feeling as though they were always loved,” Margaret continued. She strode over to a side door and unlocked it.

We started down a stone path, winding through a field of corn being farmed by a group of workers, to a building beyond the reservoir. “These children will become responsible citizens of The New America. They'll love this country and know the place they had in ensuring its future,” the King added. “With every child born we grow in numbers. We become less vulnerable. We're closer to being the powerful nation we once were.”

We climbed the stone steps and Margaret unlocked a second door, emptying us into another large room. Nurses wound through dozens of plastic beds. The babies were swaddled in tight blankets. Only their round, pink faces were visible. “These are our most recent arrivals,” Margaret added. A staff member walked up and down the rows, cradling an infant in a dark blue blanket. “Would you like to hold one, Princess?”

“Yes,” Reginald answered for me. “It would be nice to have a shot for the paper.”

Margaret pushed into the room and maneuvered through the beds, choosing a sleeping baby bundled in a red blanket. She scooped her up and delivered her into my arms. My throat tightened just looking at the tiny creature, who had undoubtedly been shipped in on some truck, traveling for miles to this cold room, to wait for someone to want her.

It was true that the building was much different than I'd imagined. Cleaner, brighter, happier. Each floor was filled with staff members who spoke to the children in whispered words, who gently patted their bottoms to keep them from crying. But I couldn't look at any of it—at the beds and plastic pacifiers and the knit blankets—without thinking of my friends.

“Over here, Princess,” Reginald's photographer called out. “Smile.”

I looked into the lens and remembered the message, a quiet comfort. The dissidents had sent word in the paper the day after they'd run my piece, writing a reply under the familiar name Mona Mash. It was a long, flowery letter, a gushing account of the parade through one woman's eyes. She spoke of her excitement for the royal wedding, speculating on the best places to stand for the procession. It had taken me an entire day to figure out its meaning. Carefully recopying the letters nearly fifty different ways, I'd finally discovered the encrypted message:
We have a contact in the prison. A plan is in place that should secure his release. One tunnel complete
.

“Look how lovely you are,” the King cooed as I held the baby in my arms. The photographer kept snapping photos, catching the morning light that streamed through the blinds. The little girl's face was calm. She cracked open her gray eyes, her lips puckering slightly. I didn't feel the stirrings of motherhood or some warm gushiness inside my chest. I could only think of the future before me, what would happen in the next week. It was only a matter of time, I kept telling myself. An end was coming.

Margaret took the baby from my arms and set her back down on the bed. “I'd love to show you one more thing,” she said, starting out the door.

We followed her up the stairs, the King resting his hand on my shoulder. “These children will have real lives inside the City. Even the ones who aren't adopted fare better than any child could beyond the wall. They're raised here, given a proper education,” he said softly. “They're taken care of. Their mothers' sacrifices have been honored.”

“I can see that now,” I lied, the words catching in my throat. “It all makes so much sense.” Margaret strode out into the second floor. Reginald, his camerawoman, and the two soldiers followed behind her. For a moment the King and I were alone in the doorway.

He turned to me and rested his hand on my shoulder. “I know this hasn't been easy for you,” he said, lowering his head to meet my eyes. “But I appreciate the effort you're making. I think you'll really enjoy life here, with Charles. Adjusting will just take time.”

“It's getting easier,” I said, not looking him in the eye. It was the first thing I had said that contained some bit of truth. Since discovering the message in the paper, things felt lighter. I could see an exit from this world and I was moving toward it, steadily, day by day. I had one more message to post in the paper, a response to my visit to the center, which would contain the seedling of a plan. If Harper and Curtis could help release Caleb, I'd meet him the morning of the wedding. With the City in such upheaval, we'd have the best chances of escape.

Beatrice had given me her word that she'd help. She would leave the bridal suite for an extended period of time, unlocking the door to the east stairwell to allow me access. I'd spent days watching Clara, waiting for her to divulge my secrets to Charles or the King. After seeing no signs of betrayal, I'd solicited her help. She would divert the soldier stationed outside my room so I could escape undetected. I tried not to be offended by how elated she was that I would be leaving the City forever.

The King kept his hand on my shoulder as we walked down the hall. “These are our adoption offices,” Margaret said. She knocked on one of the doors and a middle-aged woman in a navy suit answered. They exchanged a few words and the woman stepped back, letting us inside. A couple sat in front of a desk. They were a little older than Beatrice, their hair showing the first signs of gray. They both stood when they saw the King and me, the man bowing, the woman curtsying.

“This is Mr. and Mrs. Sherman,” Margaret said, gesturing to the couple. “They're starting a family.”

“Congratulations,” I said, looking into their faces. The woman's eyes were pink and watery. The man clutched a cap in his hand, curling the thin cotton brim.

“They're adopting two children,” Margaret went on. “We've been in the process for a month now, and today is the day they're bringing them home.”

“Two little girls—twins.” Mrs. Sherman smiled, but her face looked pained, her forehead wrinkled in worry. “It's really a dream for us.” Her husband wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.

“I was envisioning couples like you when I started the program,” the King said. “People who wanted a second chance at life after the plague. This program was designed to grow The New America while allowing people to again experience the joy of having a family. We wish you luck.”

“That means a lot,” the man said softly, before kissing his wife on the forehead. He didn't wear a uniform, which made me think he was a member of the middle class. Some worked in the offices in the Venetian, others ran businesses in the Palace mall or the apartment buildings on the main strip. His clothes were gently worn, the hems repaired, a tiny hole visible in the elbow of his shirt.

Margaret stepped aside, leading us back into the hall, the door clicking shut. When we were a few steps away, she turned.

“It's hard,” she said, her voice low. “Mrs. Sherman lost her entire family in the plague—a husband and two children, one only sixteen months old. Mr. Sherman lost his wife. Now that time has passed and they're established in the City, remarried, they want to start a family. But it opens old wounds, you know.”

The King was quiet. “Of course,” he said after a long pause. “We can all understand that.”

We descended the stairs in silence, the sound of our footsteps echoing off the cold walls. When we returned to the main foyer we said good-bye to Margaret, the camera clicking as I shook her hand. We left Reginald at the front entrance, scribbling in his notebook. I thought of that baby, her sweet face, the way she had opened her eyes and looked at me for a brief moment. After I left the City there'd be no going back. The King would be after me, and Caleb and I would be forever on the run. I couldn't return to the Schools. I would never find my way back to Pip or Arden. They'd be trapped in that building, their children shipped off to this sterile center. I saw Ruby's face again, eyes glassy as she leaned on the fence.

I had to get word to them now, before I left.

I started down the steps, enveloped by the day's heat. The sun burned my eyes, seeming brighter, harsher even, as it reflected off the sandstone building. “Father,” I said, conscious of the title that I had avoided for so long. The King raised his head. The cars pulled up the circular driveway. Soldiers lined up to escort us out. “I'd like to visit my old School, if just to see the younger girls there. I want to go back one last time.”