Prized (12 page)

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Authors: Caragh M. O'Brien

BOOK: Prized
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The Matrarc waited without speaking for another moment. Then she backed up one more step and quietly closed the door.
Gaia stood and hurled her pillow across the room, hearing something clatter on the desk and smash onto the floor. Stillness followed, charged in the dark air. With a moan, Gaia huddled onto her bed again, curling her head in her arms.
 
Erianthe had a boy. Norris told Gaia when she met him in the kitchen later that morning. He was in an unusually foul mood, and since she'd hardly slept, Gaia wasn't much better.
I'll never get out
. The refrain kept running through her mind. She would never get out, the Matrarc would never release her, and she'd be no good to any mothers ever again. Leon would live out the rest of his years in prison because of her.
She sank into the rocker near the hearth.
“I don't know what to do anymore,” she said.
“Don't ask me.” Norris smacked a ham on the table and reached for a cleaver.
“I'm not.”
Mlady Roxanne peeked her head in the doorway, her arms full of books. “What happened last night? I thought the Matrarc came for you.”
“I couldn't go with her unless I told her what she wants to know.”
“Oh, Mlass Gaia,” Mlady Roxanne said sadly. She came in farther and set her books on the counter, nudging a bowl of onions.
“What am I even doing here?” Gaia asked.
“This happens when people are confined for reflection,” Mlady Roxanne said. “You'll need to sort it through.”
“I'm not doing anybody any good stuck here in the lodge.
I don't even understand this place. Not the first thing about it,” Gaia said.
Mlady Roxanne and Norris exchanged glances, and Mlady Roxanne leaned back against the counter.
“Can I help? Is there anything I can explain for you?” Mlady Roxanne asked.
Gaia tossed up a hand. What she needed was advice about what to do, but she couldn't ask for that without telling about Peony. Other information would have to suffice. “Everything. Why are the women in charge? What gives the Matrarc so much power?”
“There is something exceptional about Mlady Olivia,” Mlady Roxanne said. She sent another glance to Norris and continued. “The cuzines have elected her, of course, but it's more than that by now. It isn't simply control or force. It's more like influence, leadership. She really listens. I, for one, trust her implicitly.”
“You can't help but respect her,” Norris said.
Mlady Roxanne nodded. “She's the best of us, I'd say.”
“But how did the women even take control?” Gaia asked. “How did Sylum get like this?”
“The women have always been in charge, ever since back in the cool age,” Mlady Roxanne said, surprised. “You have to imagine how snow fell two meters high and lasted for months, so the people who lived hereabouts were used to hardship and a degree of isolation, even when they had oil technology.” Her voice warmed with pride. “Our ancestors were uncomplaining, resourceful, no-nonsense types with a love of the land and nature.”
“They drank a lot,” Norris said.
Mlady Roxanne frowned at him. “Norris. That is completely untrue. For work, there were some glasswork artisans living around Lake Nipigon, but most were poppy croppers
and small-scale farmers. They ice-fished and raised hogs and married lumberjacks, frankly. A bus brought library books. Much of our collection is left over from one of those buses.”
“There's the mine. That's from before. And there's the ruins near the mine,” Norris said.
Mlady Roxanne nodded. “Right. We have a mine for iron oxide copper up on the bluff. The crims work there when we need them. The ruins aren't much: some archaic concrete foundations. Once, the government put a branch of the department of revenue here to try to provide some jobs, and there was a famous fish farm for generations, but even that didn't last.”
Gaia looked over at Norris, who was cutting slices of the ham.
“It doesn't fit,” Gaia said. “Why is the Enclave so much more advanced? What happened to your electricity and technology?”
“That all takes money,” Norris said. “And planning.”
“It's true,” Mlady Roxanne said. “Nothing here was planned. As the lake receded over decades, the people followed it farther in.” She gesticulated the tightening of a circle. “One night, a windstorm whipped through the area, killing many of the people and destroying their homes. The survivors banded together around a bonfire, seeking safety, and Sylum was born.”
Gaia could see how that made sense. “Like ‘asylum'? When did the number of women start to fall off?”
“A few generations ago it began to be noticeable.”
“Why didn't the men just take over? Why don't they now?”
Norris jabbed his cleaver in his cutting board with a bang. He headed out the back door and let it slam closed after him.
“What did I say?” Gaia asked.
Mlady Roxanne shook her head. “Norris doesn't like to think about it. Now and then, the men grumble about
changing things here, especially the expools like Norris, but they can't.”
“I didn't know he was an expool.”
Mlady Roxanne turned toward the window, and Gaia followed her gaze to where Norris was now heading out the gate. It changed something, knowing Norris had never even had a chance at being a father.
“He'll be back,” Mlady Roxanne said. “He just has to cool down.”
“He's upset that I didn't help Erianthe, isn't he?”
“No, that's not it. He doesn't blame you.” Mlady Roxanne smiled sadly, the gap just showing in her teeth. “I don't want you to think the men aren't happy here. Most of them are. My husband and I have a beautiful family, and we have many unmarried friends from both the pool and the expool who are happy here, too. We're leading productive, meaningful lives. But Norris and some of the others, too—sometimes they wish things could change.”
“Why can't they?”
Mlady Roxanne laughed and reached for her pile of books. “The cuzines like their power too much to give it up, for one thing. They, or I should say ‘we,' also do a good job running things. People like order. Besides, the women are all trained archers, and we have a guard of two hundred loyal men, sons and husbands of the cuzines that we can call up any time. That's above and beyond the outriders and prison guards and such who keep order on a day-to-day basis. Those men in the guard want to protect what's theirs, believe me, and the best way to do that is to maintain the status quo.”
“Have the other men never revolted, then?” Gaia asked.
“They did. Once.” Mlady Roxanne idly turned around the top book in her pile. “There was a time just after Mlady Olivia
became Matrarc when some of the unmarried men wanted to take over. They got the notion that the women should be shared. Can you imagine? The Matrarc brought every female together in the lodge, cuzines and libbies alike, and she positioned the loyal guard around us.”
“What happened then?”
“We waited,” Mlady Roxanne said. “It didn't take long for the men with wives and families to realize they had to put down the rebellion. They killed the men who started it. The rest gave in, and life went back to normal, but they never forgot.”
Gaia looked back out the window, and Norris was coming back up the path of the garden, limping on his peg leg. There were so many things he'd never had a choice about.
“She won't ever let me out, will she?” Gaia asked.
Mlady Roxanne squeezed Gaia's shoulder gently on her way out of the room. “It isn't easy to give up what you believe in, Mlass Gaia. It just matters what you believe in more.”
 
Weeks passed. A full moon came with another village potluck banquet and the traditional thirty-two games. When mothers were in labor, Gaia steeled herself for the Matrarc to come to her again, but she didn't.
Then one night, when Gaia was spinning wool by the fire in the kitchen, Peony came softly in from the garden door.
“I hoped I'd find you here,” Peony said. Her face had gained a healthier color in the weeks since they'd spoken, but her eyes seemed even larger and her hair was back in a sober braid.
“How are you?” Gaia asked.
“I'm not supposed to talk to you. We don't have much time.” Peony moved to the other doorway, where she could keep watch up the hall. “Have you talked to the Matrarc lately?”
Gaia peered across at her. “No. Your secret's still safe.”
“My secret?” Peony frowned, turning to face Gaia. Her lips parted in an expression of surprise, then closed again firmly. “Mlass Gaia, I told her. Weeks ago.”
“What?” Gaia couldn't believe it.
Peony wrapped her arms around herself. “I couldn't stand to see what she was doing to you. None of it was your fault. So I told her.”
“I don't understand,” Gaia said. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“I thought you already knew I told. I thought you were just being stubborn.”
It boggled Gaia's mind. “She's known all this time? But you haven't been sent to the libbies.”
“No. She worked out a deal with my mother,” Peony said. “They settled it together privately that I'll marry Boughton Phineas two years from now, if I can behave myself until then. He's old, nearly thirty, from a good family. He knows, but he'll keep it quiet, and we're supposed to spend time together so it looks like love. It's possible no one will ever even suspect I buried the box.”
Gaia couldn't wrap her head around it. “If she's known this, if you've worked this all out—” She could hardly breathe. “Then why has she left me here all these weeks?”
“She must want you to tell her yourself.”
Gaia dropped her head back against the rocker.
“Just tell her already,” Peony said. “She already knows. Give this up.”
“I've been protecting you all this time. I can't believe you didn't tell me.”
“I thought you were holding out for other girls like me in the future,” Peony said. “Isn't that true?”
“Yes, but then why are you saying this?” Gaia asked. “Do
you wish you'd kept your baby? Do you think no one else should ever induce a miscarriage?”
Peony shook her head, her eyes gleaming. “I'm thankful for what you did for me. Believe me. But I think we need you out of the lodge. There's so much else you can do for us, and you need your own freedom. You're wasting away into nothing. When I asked for your help, I never guessed this would happen to you. I never dreamed you'd hold out so long.”
Gaia's mind was whirling with the possibilities. “She sent you to say this, didn't she?”
“No. She told me not to talk to you. I came myself. And I brought you something else, too.” Peony reached up her sleeve and extricated a folded bit of paper. She took another look out the doorway and then stepped near, holding it out.
Gaia felt a shiver before she even took it in her fingers. “Who's it from?”
“I think you know. I thought you'd want to hear from him.”
“I'm not supposed to receive any messages,” Gaia whispered. “If you ever tell, if the Matrarc ever knows, it will be as if I'd stepped outside the lodge.” Sudden fear closed in around her. “Wait.” She couldn't take it. She couldn't read it. As if it scorched her, Gaia dropped the folded paper onto the table. “I can't.”
“Are you crazy? Do you know the risks I took to bring that to you?” Peony said. “I had to find Malachai's brother and get him to smuggle paper and ink in to Malachai, and then back out. Twice I had to try. It took forever.”
Gaia shook her head. “It doesn't matter. I've stayed here weeks without going outside even one step just to prove to the Matrarc that she can't control me.”
Peony looked utterly confused. “But she's controlled you this whole time,” she argued.
“No. She hasn't.” Gaia backed away from the table, her eyes still fixated on the little paper, knowing Leon had touched it, written on it. He had words just for her. She wrenched her gaze away. “You have to take it back.”
Peony laughed in astonishment. “You are totally and completely mixed up. Do you know that? She's got you so confused that you don't even know what matters anymore.” Peony marched forward, snatched up the note, and cast it in the fire where the paper hovered a moment and then burst into flames.
Gaia grabbed at the spinning wheel, watching the last, crinkling bit of Leon's message turn to black ash. “Do you even know what it said?” she asked.
“I have no idea. It was in some code. I'm going,” Peony said quietly. “I thought you needed a friend.”

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