Heart of Stone (27 page)
Authors: Anya Monroe
Epilogue
Sophie didn’t know about the Royal Ball her father and mother had planned weeks ago, and she certainly hadn’t anticipated hosting one when she arrived back in town with a ridiculously drunk-on-riches posse. But she did.
The guests had already arrived. The Royalty from the surrounding countries hadn’t heard of Gemmes’ scandalous week when they came to shore for the gala of the century.
Luckily, Nicolette had known, and made the necessary preparations. Nicolette had promised Queen Cozette she would, after all.
At the ball, Sophie wined and dined and danced in an unreasonably decadent gown like she’d always wanted. She wore her hair piled upon her head, jewels dripping from her neck and wrists. She drank champagne and ate truffles and she kissed Henri, and more.
The Ball was a success. Obviously. Tours, led by the King’s Légion, guided the neighboring kings and princes to the Montagne to see the golden lake themselves. The fortune was irresistible and everyone wanted a piece. The trading would begin more fervently than ever before.
The people of Gemmes may have been offended when Sophie told them, upon pronouncement of the new trade routes, to “Eat Cake!” but they weren’t. Perhaps it was because the country’s golden boy, Henri, had baked it. Or perhaps it was because she let her people take buckets of gold with them back to their homes.
Or perhaps it was because people saw that Sophie was no ordinary queen. She was like everybody else. Her life hadn’t been perfect. She was a girl from a village, just like them.
She was a girl whose heart had cracked open, like the mountain, and was changed because of it.
They all were.
***
The End
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Acknowledgements
I want to offer my sincerest thank you to the early readers of this novel, Eryn Carpenter, Cynthia Mora, John Pelkey, Kristi Rose, GL Snodgrass, and Pamela Zizzo. Your feedback strengthened this story and I am so grateful for your help.
My children are nothing but supportive as I’ve worked to pursue this career. Thank you Phoenix, Isabela, Moses, Maisey, Lincoln and Atticus.
Thank you Jeremy for being more than my rock. You are a gem. A diamond in the rough. A treasure. Worth your weight in gold. Basically, you are priceless.
OTHER TITLES BY ANYA MONROE:
Have you read
The Shine On Trilogy by
Anya Monroe
?
Here is Chapter One of
Flicker:
chapter one
My latex-covered fingers tighten as the warmth abandons them. Mom swears she stored a bag of rice in the underground bunker, but I can’t find anything resembling food. A shiver runs down my spine while I move empty crates around. Some light would really help.
Mom’s in the house, one floor above me, and I know she’ll grow anxious the longer I take, but it’s impossible to find anything down here in the pitch dark. I rely on my memory as I determine my path; no one lets me use a flashlight. They require special batteries, too precious for my
child-like
hands.
The light that used to be rigged down here has been moved upstairs to our dome-shaped house, where we live now. Keeping one underground would be a waste, as we never come down the hatch unless we need to restock our kitchen, which I’m supposed to be doing. Mom has sent me on an impossible task. I scan my fingers across our pantry shelves but find nothing.
I rarely make my way down here, I’m glad to avoid this space. The first years of my life were spent in this bunker, in the maze of tunnels and rooms. I have no interest in returning to what Mom jokingly calls The Dark Ages, but coming here now, on a mission for rice, I wish I’d crossed the threshold more frequently. Maybe then I would know that there’s nothing left to eat.
I make my way across the bunker, desperate to get out as fast as possible, but then stop, knowing I ought to check out the other storerooms first. Otherwise, Mom will just make me come back down, to try again.
I hustle through a tunnel, toward Mark’s and Diane’s supply closet. I run my hands over the shelves that were once stuffed to the gills with every kind of vanilla-flavored soy-based protein powder you could imagine; now they’re completely empty. Misjudging the number of steps before I should turn, I trip twice as I head to Jack’s and Forest’s. No food in their supply room either, as far as my hands can tell. I understand why Mom doesn’t ask me to come down here often; it’s depressing as hell. The last room to feel out is Shelby’s and Thomas’s. There are a few gallon jugs of what smells like vinegar, those won’t make a meal.
I place my fingers to my temples in my attempt to avoid panic
, Think, Lucy. Think
. There must to be something down here to eat. I swear I’m going to hyperventilate, there’s got to be some edible item to be found. Otherwise, that’s it, no more food.
Defeated, I turn back through the maze of connecting bunkers. I smack my shoulder against a concrete wall and trip, falling to my knees. My hands save me from a bigger blow. With irritation I feel a tear in the thin glove on my left hand. I take it off, knowing it’s useless now. They’re just for precaution anyways, since I chose to take a walk outside this morning, another part of my ‘System-Detoxification.’
“Owww.” The childish sound that escapes my lips embarrasses me, but the fall did leave a sting. I rub my fingers against the palms of my hands. No blood. Thank God, everyone would have a panic attack upstairs if I had. I’d probably be quarantined for a week. No one wants an infection to fester. Wishing I could see the damage, I stop moving as I recognize the faint, dull green color emitting from the center of my hand. I’ve seen this before and Mom has too. When I was younger, she told me not to show anyone my hand when this happened, that some things in life are best kept in the dark.
No longer worried about my knees, I stand to my feet, knowing my opportunity with this light may leave any moment. I lean as close as I can to the shelf next to me and hold my palm to my eyes, scanning with more fervor than I had in the complete dark. Still, there’s nothing to eat.
Desperate to avoid returning empty-handed, I move fast. Passing the well that supplies our water, I head toward another shelf near the exit ladder. Looking at my hand again, it has dimmed, but in this dark cavern anything is an improvement. I move aside a five-gallon bucket and see, triumphantly, a can of beans.
I grab the can and read the label “Boston Baked Beans, Best Before 8/2020.” Suddenly the light in my hand is gone, and the room returns to black. I smile. Beans twelve years past their prime are better than nothing.
I hurry up the ladder, pull the air-locked hatch open, and once again I can see. Sunlight streams through the circular windows in the kitchen and I’m relieved to be out of the bunker. Being there gives me the heebie-jeebies, a reminder of a long ago life, that for me was the beginning, but for everyone else I live with, a strange in-between. A place that holds painful memories of what they lost when they entered the bunkers of their own handiwork. What they lost the day the lights went out and the world’s power grid came down.
Mom has her back to me, as she stands at the kitchen counter. She slams shut the drawer where we keep our vitamins, then turns around, hope written on her face. I seal the hatch behind me, careful to keep the can from her view. Looking down at my hands and knees I assess the damage. Thankfully my pants haven’t torn through.
“Did you get the rice, Lucy?” Mom asks, with a hint of sadness in her eyes, a vulnerability in her I rarely see. She waits for my answer on the non-existent grain.
“Couldn’t find any.” I say the last part in a near whisper, “I just don’t think it was because it’s dark down there.”
“I figured as much, I just hoped it wasn’t true.” She glances at the empty doorway before she continues. “That’s why I wanted you to go down there, to look around for yourself, before you hear the adults talk about the shortage tonight at dinner.”
“It’s not a shortage, Mom. There’s nothing. You knew?” My heart beats loud in my chest. I always assumed Forest would have come back with an answer before things became so destitute. Though the rations had become noticeably smaller, I never imagined it was this bad.
“Lucy, it was bound to happen at some point. You’re a bright girl, this can’t be a shock, can it?”
But it is, and stupid or not, I always assumed the people in charge … meaning my parents and the other adults I consider my family … would find a solution before we starved to death. Mom’s brows furrow as she looks in the basket on the counter. Her auburn hair is twisted in a braid, flecked with strands of white that reveal more about the stress of our environment than her age.
“We have about eight carrots from the green house, but that’s it. The rest of the seeds never took.”
“Well, I found you something,” I say with a smile, as I hold the can behind my back. This can is the only way to reverse her sadness, for a moment at least. “Ta-da!” I pull the beans out and Mom grabs the 32 oz. can from my hands.
“Baked Beans! I haven’t had these in years. You found these down there?” Tears spring to her eyes; Mom gets nostalgic when it comes to canned goods. Most of the food we eat is rice, beans, and protein shakes made with powdered milk. Beans in a sugary coating is a luxury we never get. Not anymore at least.
“They were behind a bucket. Lucky find, right?”
Mom turns the can to read the label as she wipes her tears away, holding the can closer so her declining eyesight can read the words more clearly. I know the numbers will bother her, but not because it’s past date, everything we eat these days is, but because the numbers remind her of before the blackout.
“Mom, they’re just twelve years expired. No biggie. I mean, if we’ve survived this long….” I stop and my sentence peters out. Survival is hard and with no more rice, I know what she thinks, what she fears.
“How did you find these down there, Lucy, behind a bucket no less? I know how dark it is.”
“It happened again….” I look at my left hand, not wanting to make eye contact with the person who knows me best. The person who I still don’t think knows me at all.
“Did you do something, to make it work?”
“No, of course not … should we tell Dad? Or Forest? Maybe they know something that can explain it, this hasn’t happened in years.”
“No,” Mom says with hushed fierceness to her voice. “Do not say a word. Not to them.”
Mom and Dad don’t see eye to eye. Dad’s too busy to listen to me, an inexperienced child, anyways. Only Mom takes the times to hear and see.
“To
them
? They are our family.”
“I understand, but the timing isn’t right.”
“Okay. I just….”
“You just nothing, Lucy. Can you please go let everyone know it’s dinnertime? I’ll just dish these beans into the bowls real quick, okay?” She pulls out the dulled can opener from the drawer.
“Sure, Mom.” I lean over and kiss her cheek. My life has been told to me in half-truths, this is nothing new. The only difference is, it isn’t enough for me anymore.