Burn (38 page)
She rips the edge of the paper that she’s just written on. She let Freedle loose last night, and now she clicks her tongue softly, calling for him. She hears ticking and then a whir of his wings, and moments later he alights on her open palm. Lyda whispers, “Once upon a time, Pressia’s mother set you loose to find her daughter. And you did. This time, hopefully Cygnus will get you all the way out of the Dome, and you will have to find Bradwell and give him this message.”
She lifts one of Freedle’s wings, and through the thin casing of his light body, she can see the inner mechanisms. Lyda rolls the long thin message and fits it into the cicada’s body, but she leaves a small tail—a little bit sticking out, something one of the others on the outside might notice.
The cicada opens his fine metal wings, flaps them, lifts from her hand, and flits around the room.
Lyda opens the closet door. She pushes through the maternity dresses, their hangers squeaking along the rod, but when she gets to the back of the closet, reaching for her handmade armor of woven hangers, there’s nothing. It’s gone.
Did they come in last night and take it? Have they known it was here all along? She feels invaded, betrayed—and stripped of the thing she’d made to protect herself.
She hears two voices in the hall talking quickly, urgently. Lyda presses her ear to the door. She recognizes Chandry’s voice—high-pitched and whiny—and the guard’s bass. She imagines Chandry coming in, pawing through her clothes, and ripping out the armor. It’s probably already been thrown away.
The voices stop. There’s a squeaking noise, something rattling along the wood floors—something on wheels? And then there’s banging in the nursery. She knows what’s happening. They’re tearing it all down.
The noise wakes Pressia, who stirs and sits up.
Lyda presses her finger to her lips.
“What’s going on out there?” Pressia asks.
“It’s Chandry Culp. She’s the one who’s teaching me to knit and, well, trying to teach me how to be a good mother. She’s taking apart the nursery. She’s breaking it down.”
“Your mother ordered Beckley to get everything in the nursery replaced.”
“My mother,” Lyda says. “She has the proof they’ll need to put me away after they take the baby from me. My mother will report that I’m certifiably crazy. Maybe I am.” She sits down next to Pressia on the bed.
“No,” Pressia says. “Don’t say that.”
“Girls!” It’s Chandry’s shrill voice. “Girls, come out here now!” Is Chandry going to make Lyda take the nursery apart—as punishment?
Lyda clicks her tongue for Freedle again, who peddles through the air.
“Freedle!” Pressia says.
“He’s fine!” Lyda says, and she quickly cups him and puts him in the pocket of her sweater. “Best to keep him hidden.”
Pressia grabs Lyda’s hand. “Is there a way?”
Lyda knows what she’s asking—is there a way out of here? “There’s always a way.”
They step into the hall. The door to the nursery is open enough to see Chandry in a shiny blue pantsuit, leaning over a large rectangular bin on wheels. She’s picking up a bundle of hand-whittled spears. The orb is gone. Chandry has been hard at work too. She’s a little breathless and perspiring. She’s muttering to herself angrily. “What a pretty mess we’ve made! What a pretty,
pretty
mess!” When they appear in the door, Chandry looks up. “You!” she says to Pressia. “Start helping!”
“And me?” Lyda asks.
“Someone reported the orb’s broken. A repairman is here.” Lyda looks at Pressia. She remembered to tell the guard! “He wants to know what’s wrong with it exactly,” Chandry says. “Personally, I don’t think you should have access to that orb anymore! But does anyone ask my opinion? No! No they do not!”
“Okay,” Lyda says. “I’ll go check on him.”
“And then come right back here. You have been wicked. Do you understand me? Wicked. And it has to stop!”
“I promise,” Lyda says. “No more of it!”
Chandry gives a final nod, and Lyda walks quickly to the living room. There, at the dining room table, is Boyd, wearing a gray jumpsuit, working on the orb. “You came so quickly!” Lyda says.
He stands up and smiles. “Always at your service.”
“Have you fixed it?”
“I’m working on it,” Boyd says. “It’s a wiring issue, I believe.” There’s nothing wrong with it at all, so does this mean he knows he’s been called for a different reason?
“Well, I really needed your help,” Lyda says.
“I’m smoothing it all out.”
“Do you have to take it with you to the shop? I thought maybe it would need to be taken out.” She means that she hopes he will help them get out—Pressia and Lyda together. But will he understand?
“I see your point,” Boyd says. “Yes. And I’ve thought of that.”
“You have?”
“I have.”
Boyd screws a back panel onto the orb, tightens it up. He hands it to Lyda. “It’s all better, though! See?”
She admires it. “Aren’t you a lifesaver?” Lyda says, meaning,
Save us
.
“It was nice to see Chandry here this morning,” Boyd says, idly packing his tools.
“Do you know her?”
“We’re neighbors, actually. Mr. and Mrs. Culp are great people.”
Lyda’s alarmed. Is Boyd trying to tell her something?
“The kind of neighbors who help others. You know?”
“Really…” Lyda says.
“Really,” Boyd says. “You can always trust a Culp.” Is he telling her to trust Chandry? Lyda feels like crying. Is this a joke? Trust Culp?
Chandry
? If she trusts Chandry, and Boyd is wrong, she’ll wind up in the rehabilitation center. But if Boyd is truly part of Cygnus and so are the Culps, then this may be their only chance.
Boyd reaches out to shake her hand. He’s leaving. She hugs Boyd and whispers, “Return him to the outside. He’s a messenger. Let him go.” She takes Freedle from her pocket and slips it into the pocket of Boyd’s gray jumpsuit.
When she releases him, he looks confused, but she has to have faith that Boyd will find Freedle and do as she told him and that Freedle will have sense and strength enough to deliver the message. Lyda smiles at Boyd, pats his shoulder.
“Be careful with the orb,” he says, but he glances at her belly. He means,
Take care of the baby.
Is he saying that he won’t see her again—for a long time?
“I will, Boyd. Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for everything.”
“You’re welcome. I hope it all works.” He smiles at her—weary but with a hint of hope.
She smiles and then clips back down the hall.
When she walks into the nursery, Pressia is nowhere to be seen. The large plastic bin on wheels sits in the middle of the room. Chandry looks at her searchingly then glances at the cameras mounted in the high corners. The cloths hiding the cameras are gone, but one seems like it’s been twisted so that it points mostly into a corner, leaving part of the room out of view.
“Are you just going to stand there?” Chandry says. “You should have been made to do all of this yourself!” Her tone is still harsh. Is she putting on a show? She picks up a spear. “Here,” she says, nodding to the bin.
Lyda takes the spear and walks it to the bin. She looks into it, and there, amid all of the mess of her room—the remains of books and spears, pieces of Lyda’s dress, the shell of a few books, even the bowl of ashes, now overturned, and all that’s left of the crib—is Pressia. She looks up and nods.
Trust Culp.
This is what she seems to be saying. Lyda drops the spear into the bin.
Chandry has a bundle of spears in one fist. She backs up close to the wall that the camera isn’t filming. “Bring that bin closer,” Chandry says. “Stop lazing around!”
Lyda complies. She pushes the bin to the spot Chandry is now pointing at. Once there, Chandry gives a nod. She means,
You’re out of view now. Get in
.
The bin is dark and cluttered with the debris of her room. As Lyda climbs in, Chandry keeps talking. “I don’t know what possessed you to make such a disgusting mess! A child is a holy, holy gift.”
Soon, Lyda and Pressia are sitting on the floor of the bin. It’s dusty with ash, like home.
Chandry is dropping in the last few spears, saying, “You were going to bring this child into this awful place? What were you thinking? Your mother was right about you.”
This stings. What did Lyda’s mother say about her?
“You need help! Real professional help! You’ll probably never be right in the head. It’s a permanent condition!”
Lyda closes her eyes. She knows why Chandry is saying this; it’s a warning. She means that Lyda has to get out now. Her mother will be coming back for her with a team of professionals. She’ll be taken into the rehab center and never allowed to leave. A permanent condition. Lyda thinks back to what she read in her psychological evaluation:
lifelong institutionalization
. She opens her eyes. Pressia reaches out and grabs Lyda’s hand. She must know this is hard for Lyda. It’s like losing a mother, in a way. Maybe it’s worse. A rejection. Pressia squeezes Lyda’s hand, and Lyda squeezes back.
Chandry closes the lid, and the bin goes dark.
The bin starts rolling. Lyda can feel the jostling wheels. She listens to their light squeaking.
Chandry has taken them out of the room. She stops in the hallway for a moment. Has she left them?
No—she’s back, humming a little tune, pushing the massive garbage bin.
She says to the guard, “The poor girl has had a shock. We don’t want her to lose the pregnancy. Let them both sleep the rest of the day. They’ve eaten. They’re tucked in. Do not disturb them. Do you hear me?”
The guard must nod because Chandry starts moving again, the wheels catching and jittering beneath them. Lyda reaches down to steady herself and feels the tightly woven metal—her armor. It’s here. Maybe Chandry knew this was the way for Lyda to keep it.
E
l Capitan’s arms are corded, and he hangs on the metal frame of what used to be a tall swing set behind an elementary school. Helmud is gripping his neck. There’s a line of people waiting their turn to beat the two of them with sticks. He can only see through the puffed slit of one eye; the other is swollen shut—this was from the earlier beating: a free-for-all. The survivors’ bodies are bent and warped, but the blurring of his one weeping eye takes away the details of their scars and fusings, which is a mercy.
They’ve chosen their own sticks—some thin and whiplike, others heavy as two-by-fours. One survivor is armed with what looks like an old golf club, bent and kinked. El Capitan and Helmud are covered in a mix of bloody cuts, deep bruises, and welts. El Capitan’s body burns hot and bright with a pain so sharp and deep that his mind feels loose.
And he remembers being little—he was blindfolded, given a stick, and told to beat a brightly colored donkey strung to a tree branch. It was a birthday party. He’d worn new corduroys that swished with each step. His mother stayed the whole time, which was strange, and she held Helmud’s hand instead of letting him wander.
El Capitan knew the birthday girl was from a rich family because they had a swimming pool—though it was fall and the pool was capped.
They’d already opened the presents, and the kids at the party had made fun of his gift—a plastic doll. It was a cheap present, and the birthday girl was too old for it. And so when his turn came, he beat the donkey as hard as he could. And when they said his turn was over, he kept beating it. He beat it and beat it until he heard a pop and the candy rained down, spraying everywhere as the donkey gaped and swayed.
He took off the blindfold and watched the kids scramble. Helmud wrestled loose from his mother’s grip and joined them, but El Capitan was even angrier now. The kids had been rewarded for laughing at him. “Go on and help yourself,” the girl’s father told him, pushing on his back.
He refused. He wasn’t going to dive for some rich kid’s scraps. He stood there and watched. Later, he stole some of Helmud’s candy; someone owed him something.
Now he’s the donkey.
Even if he had no other fault or sin, he deserves this beating for losing the bacterium alone.
He hears people calling his name—jeering. His vision is blurred by sweat and blood. He blinks into the bright light of day. The sun—even clouded as always—sears a burning pain into his skull. He sees Dome worshippers mostly, but some of the mothers have also wandered in. They hate him plenty. He recognizes a few OSR soldiers too. Hasn’t he done good things for them?
Their gaunt faces jump into focus then out again. His recruitment posters promised food without fear and that solidarity would save them. He left, and they were ravaged. They’ve come to view his violent execution because El Capitan abandoned them, because a lot of them have died and those who are still holding on are starving to death. He knows what it is to be abandoned. As a kid, he searched the sky for airplanes, hoping for some small connection to his father, a pilot who left the family before El Capitan could gather even a few memories of the man.
Still, the soldiers look almost happy. Survivors love a beating. There’s so much to pay for. Whenever anyone is chosen to shoulder some blame, it’s a relief. El Capitan knows that feeling. He killed people and sometimes thought, quite simply,
People deserve to die.
But he said he was sorry. And whether it was God or Saint Wi or some spiritual force he can’t even comprehend, he felt forgiven. Why are they letting him suffer like this? Does he deserve this beating? Has God already given up on him?
Some of those who stand in line are wiry and stronger than he would think, while others wear their strength with hardened shoulders and beefy guts. El Capitan and Helmud aren’t blindfolded, which seems unfair, as none of them ever just swing at the air. But they are only allowed to hit him three times each. If someone winds up to strike a fourth time, Margit is there to keep the line moving. “Hold it,” she says. “Everybody here wants theirs, so back in line.”
He looks for Bradwell. He was forced to watch the free-for-all, but he wasn’t beaten in the process. The survivors still hold him in some regard. He’s gone.