Ashes of Twilight (22 page)

“They said they would allow us to marry first, since you’re alone now.”

I study James for a long moment. His light brown hair, his green eyes, his wiry body that hides his strength. His charming smile. He is so much like Peggy, but then again he is not like her at all. I imagine Alex’s last moments as Pace described them and then I try to see James in the same situation. Someplace where he can’t talk his way out of the situation. Where no one falls under his spell.

I can see him in the council meeting; pleading his case and making it seem as if it’s all for me and everyone eagerly agreeing to it, because, in spite of what they think of me, they loved and respected my grandfather.

“Why do you want to marry me, James? Why me, of any of the girls in the village, or above for that matter.” I was being honest. James could have his pick, if he could convince one to come live below. And I’m certain he could.

James squeezes my hand. “Because I love you, Wren.”

“No, you don’t. I believe you think you do, but deep down you don’t.”

“Of course I do,” he says with his smile.

“I’m not really certain right now I know what love is. But I am sure of what it isn’t. It isn’t pressuring someone to do what you want, or forcing them to, or lying about them because they don’t fall under your spell. It isn’t betraying them to their friends and it isn’t trying to change them to meet your expectations.” I pull my hand away. “I don’t know why you chose me, James, I really don’t. I’m sorry I can’t fall in with your plan for us.”

Tears threaten again and it makes me angry. Why am I so weak? “I really wish I could. I wish I could be content to stay below and not wish for things beyond the dome. But I can’t. I can’t stop any more than I can stop breathing. My marrying you won’t change it and it certainly won’t make you happy. Choose someone else. Someone who will really appreciate who and what you are and not what they think you should be.”

His smile fades and is replaced by the same look of disgust and frustration he turned on me in the tunnel when I rejected him. “You need to grow up, Wren, and quit fighting the inevitable.” The notion that James was the one who killed the filchers and dumped them into the pit won’t let go. I know in my heart that he is capable of it in the same way I know that Pace would never murder someone.

In spite of my fear of him I remain firm in my resolve. I had tried to be nice. I had tried my best not to embarrass him in front of the village. “No,” I say clearly so he does not misunderstand. “You need to grow up and accept the fact that not everything is going to go your way.”

“You don’t mean this, Wren. If you don’t marry me what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? No one will take you in.”

“No one will take me in because you’ll tell them more lies about me? Just like you did at the seekers’ meeting?”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he continues. “You need time to think.”

I can see that his pride won’t allow him to accept my answer. Only time will make him see the truth. I also have to admit I’m frightened by his insistence. After my experience with him when he kissed me I know he’s not above forcing me into compliance.

“You are right, James,” I say. “I do need to think. About a lot of things. So much has happened lately. There’s just too much to comprehend.”

James smiles his charming smile once more. He touches my hair and smooths a lock of it back from my face. “Take all the time you need,” he says. He leans in and kisses me, quickly and chastely, before I have a chance to protest, and then he turns and walks away.

I watch him go, knowing he’s happy with what everyone saw. He was able to save face in front of the village. I don’t want to think about what he would’ve done if I’d embarrassed him. I know in my heart James is capable of many things. I’m just not so certain that all of them are good.

*   *   *

I am exhausted after the feast to honor my grandfather. Many spoke about him, some telling things that happened before I was born. There were none there who could speak about him as a young man because there were none alive who knew him then.

So much about his life I will never know. But the stories I heard, and the gratitude expressed by those who were with him when the decision was made to blow the tunnel, give me comfort.

“I could stay with you tonight, if you want,” Peggy says as I am finally able to break away from the feast.

“Funny, I can’t remember the last actual
night
I slept in my bed.” I don’t say that I don’t think I’ll ever sleep in it again. That it no longer holds the sense of comfort it once had.

“Adam thinks the strike won’t last long,” Peggy says. “And then things will go back to the way they were.”

Have I become so jaded because I’ve seen death and how ugly it is? How can Adam and the rest of the council believe that it will be that easy? Do they seriously think they can get what they want because they control the coal? I believe with all my heart that things will get a lot worse before they get better. That more people will die. And that I will be one of them. But I can’t say these things to Peggy. Peggy who is full of hope and love for her world. Not my world anymore. Was it ever truly mine?

“I don’t think it will ever be the way it was before,” I say.

To my surprise, Peggy begins to cry. She puts her hand to her mouth to hold back the sudden onset of tears. “I know,” she sobs. “I’m so sorry. I hope…”

I know what she hopes for. What she’s always hoped for. “I’m not going to marry James,” I say. “I can’t, not after what he said at the seekers’ meeting. But that means you and Adam can marry now.” We stand at the bottom of the steps to my home … her home now. “It makes me happy that you and Adam will live here.”

“But where will you go?”

I take her hands in mine, because she’s always been my friend, and I don’t want to lie to her. “I don’t know. I just know that for now, I have to go.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“I know,” I say, simply, because suddenly everything has become clear to me. “I don’t belong here anymore. I don’t think I ever have.”

Peggy shakes her head in an attempt to make it all go away. “It’s all Lucy’s fault,” she says as she watches Lucy make her way up the ramp. “If she hadn’t rejected Alex—”

“Peggy…” I recall Lucy’s words to me. How she said I inspired her to go up and go after what she wanted. If Peggy blames Lucy, then she is indirectly blaming me. Something I’d already done plenty of. “None of that matters now.” Lucy’s later words came to me. The ones she had spoken before the service. “What does matter is you love Adam and he loves you. So hold on to that and enjoy the moments that are right in front of you.”

“They won’t be the same without you here,” Peggy cries.

“Yes they will.” I know in my heart that she won’t even miss me when I am gone. None of that matters. I hug her tight, remembering all the happy times we had as children. “I’m leaving tonight, after everyone goes to sleep. Don’t try to find me. If the filchers come for me I don’t want you anywhere close.”

She hugs me. “I will see you again,” she promises. She leaves. I watch her go before I climb the steps one last time to the place that was once my home.

19

I
never thought
I would actually leave this place. A week ago I was certain I would live out my life here, marry, have children, and eventually die of the black lung. I certainly had my dreams, dreams of things that I thought were impossible to obtain. Now I know that if I want anything more, including a life, I will have to fight for it.

I take all that I can carry. My clothes, my grandfather’s clothes, our toiletries, the mirror, the slate, my grandfather’s lunch pail and coins. I empty our larder of every bit of food. Everything that I have in this world except for my grandmother’s Bible goes inside the two quilts, which I tied into a bundle. It is awkward and heavy but I have no choice. I will … Pace and I will need it all to survive. The Bible I leave on a table for Peggy and Adam. My benediction on their marriage. I wish them well, I wish them happiness. I wish them peace, something I know I will not have for a long while.

The village is serene. It has been so long since I’ve seen it at night, since I am usually at work. The overhead lights are dim and the birds quietly sleep on the wires. The goats sleep in their pen across the river. The only sound is the lap-lap of the waterwheel and a soft lullaby coming from one of the houses. A few lights wink through some of the windows. All is peaceful. All is calm. The only way for it to remain that way is if I leave. I won’t bring my troubles down on these people. They’ve done nothing to deserve it.

I turn to say good-bye to my home. It’s not as if I won’t ever come back, I just know that it will be different from now on when I do. To my surprise a cat follows me up the ramp. It’s the big gray striped one that likes to sleep with me.

“Stay here.” I swing my leg out to discourage him. “This is your home.” He gives me a plaintive meow and continues to follow me. And so I go, carrying my bundles with a cat trailing behind me through the tunnel.

Guards are still posted. I pay them no mind as from here I must pass the stables and I know they will assume that is where I’m heading. They don’t say much, except to acknowledge my passing and say something about my grandfather.

The cat stays with me and is still with me when I wearily come to the river cavern. I whistle as soon as I pass over the cave. Tonight of all nights I’m not concerned about being followed or anyone finding us.

Pace meets me at the bottom of the long ledge with the lamp in his hand. He takes the bundle from me and without a word we make our way back to the cave. I’m still wearing my dress, which is foolish considering the trek I made and the rocky pools I have to navigate. I feel ridiculous with my skirts rucked up and my work boots, which are the only shoes I own, showing my bare legs as I jump from rock to rock. More so with the cat following me and mewing its distress at all the water.

“I told you to stay home,” I say as we come to the cavern. “I didn’t think you’d like it.”

Pace shoves the bundle inside and turns to me. He stops with the lantern held high and stares at me.

“What?” I’m standing on a huge rock and thinking about how I will manage to make the climb into the cave while wearing the dress. I should have changed before I left. I should have tied my hair up instead of having it fall in my face every time I bend over.

He smiles and shakes his head. “You are so beautiful.”

No one has ever said those words to me before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, or do. I feel the heat rise on my cheeks as Pace just stands there with the lantern held aloft and looks at me while the cat twines around my ankles and meows its unhappiness.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Cat,” I say. “There are too many of them to name so they are all just Cat.”

Pace crouches down and does his little whistle that he does with Pip. Cat butts his hand questioningly. “We have one rule here, Cat. No eating the birds.” He stands. “Hold this,” he says and shoves the lamp at me. In the next instant he picks me up, so suddenly that I can’t help but let out a little yelp.

“What are you doing?”

“Your castle awaits, milady.” He swings me around and kind of sits and kind of shoves me up on the ledge to the cave.

“What is a castle?” I ask.

He picks up Cat and sets him on the shelf then jumps up beside me. “You don’t know what a castle is?”

“No.”

“Can you read?”

“Yes. I went to school until I was twelve.”

“What did you study?”

“Reading and writing and numbers. How much coal makes a ton, how long a ton will burn, things like that.”

“How about history?”

I shake my head. “Before the dome? Just what is in the Bible, and I think I know it by heart.” It was the only thing available to read.

“You never go to the library?”

“We’re only allowed once a year,” I say. “And I always looked at the drawings.”

He takes my hand and I stand, arranging my skirts as I do so. I suddenly realize the finality of what I’ve done. It’s just Pace and me in a very small cave. At my home we had curtains for privacy, and while I did bring them, I have no way to hang them. Did I think this through? Should I have stayed at the stable and made a home in the loft?

It’s too late now. Pace carries the bundle and drops it on the blankets. “This is your castle,” he says. “It’s where the royals used to live in the before time. They had more rooms than you can count and servants and stables full of horses and fields of grass where they would ride their steeds and the men would do daring deeds.”

I smile at his foolishness. “Daring deeds? Like what?”

“Slaying fire-breathing dragons.” He waves a pretend sword around and then thrusts it forward.

“If only it were that easy,” I say.

Pace suddenly realizes what he said. He runs his hand through his hair and sighs heavily. “I guess there is no escaping it,” he says. “We’re going to have to figure this out.”

“Yes, we are,” I say. “But not tonight. I just said good-bye to my grandfather and my home and I’m exhausted.” I sit down on the blankets to unwrap the bundle. Cat has already made himself comfortable and I shove him aside to make room. He moves to the corner of the blanket and licks a paw.

“You didn’t leave your home because of me, did you?” Pace sits down beside me as I start to sort through my possessions. I can’t help but notice he’s been busy while I was gone. He’s set up a shelf with two block-size rocks and a long board and has the food arranged on it. Pip sits on one rock and he sets the lamp on the other next to the lunch pail I’d left behind.

“Where did that come from?” I ask, pointing at the board.

“I found it stuck in the rocks.” He shrugs. “It must have washed down from somewhere.” He puts the food I brought on the shelf. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I didn’t leave because of you. I left because I had no choice.”

“They kicked you out?”

“No … I could have stayed. All I had to do was get married.”