The Treemakers (A YA Dystopian Scifi Romance Adventure) (6 page)

“Well, how else would all this
be possible?”

We walk in silence to the nearest tree, my words echoing through my mind. And Jax’s, too, I’m sure. The feelings of both magical illusion and unbelievable reality wash over me like a mighty flood when we draw closer to the trees. Real trees. Now I’m positive everyone has been wrong about God. Because I’ve found God right here. Swaying in these branches, reaching high into the blue abyss of perfect impossibility. Rocking gracefully as though there’s never been a day of pain, or there has, but it sways on anyway. As if it’s always been, and will always be, swaying here forevermore in perfect,
unobstructed bliss.

Tears roll down my cheeks as I squint upwards. Sunlight dances enchantingly through its branches, offering glimmers of blinding light. More perfection. We lie down on the prickle-covered ground gazing up at it, unable to speak beneath its majesty. I run my fingertips along the rough brown base that digs deep into the earth, marveling at its inherent ability to create what we have spent our whole lives manufacturing: sweet, pure, oxygen.

§

Chilly air wakes me in a panic, and I open my eyes to sparkling in the dark above, a low grumble around us. Jax is curled up on the ground beside me. “Jax!”

He stirs, then sits up, peering around frantically, then at me. “We’re
still here.”

“Yeah, and it’s night. We must’ve been asleep for
a while.”

Lightning strikes the ocean, electric branches shooting off through the sky in all directions. It’s both beautiful
and frightening.

“Storm’s coming,”
I mutter.

“How do you fall asleep and wake up, in a dream?”
he asks.

“Yeah, I was thinking that. So, we’re definitely
not dreaming.”

“I don’t know how, but
. . . .
” Jax’s eyes drift upward. “Man, check out
those stars.”

For a moment, we gaze at the twinkling darkness directly above, completely awestruck; the midnight blue is a tattered blanket long-since stretched over the daylight, letting enough light shine through to illuminate an incredible, sleeping paradise. Lightning strikes again, closer, this time followed by louder thunder. A droplet hits my forearm, and my heart skips a beat as I wait for the burn of toxic sky-waste. Yet all I feel is wetness. It slides down my arm as another lands on my head, then
my nose.

“We’d better get back to the hut,”
Jax says.

We jog back up the hill, surprised to find the hut’s windows glowing orange as if a light were on inside, though I don’t remember there being any lights. Water pours down from the sky, and we take our final few hurried steps toward the hut, whip open the door, and run inside, struggling to catch our breath. I laugh, pinching at my drenched shirt, and Jax chuckles, too, then he tugs me over to the bed. We collapse in a wet heap, shivering more from excitement than from the cold, and his lips inch slowly toward mine
. . . .

Then, I’m spinning back through the swirling dark void, shooting through space at a trillion light-years a second until I’m lying on my back on cold concrete. We scramble to our feet, Jax picks up the spear and aims it at the evil around us. “Who’s doing this?” he screams into the dark. “
Show yourself!”

Silence.

I pick up our discarded breathers. I don’t remember removing mine. And then I realize
. . .
my clothes are dry. My thoughts spiral out of control, and I fight the urge
to vomit.

Jax pushes the green button, and the door opens. We hurry from the room, then my stomach lurches, and I heave onto the concrete floor. I brace myself against the wall and feel wetness there. Jax paces nearby, fists clenched and spear at the ready, challenging the shadows to come forth and
show themselves.

He lays a hand on my back. “
You okay?”

I nod, and glance at my own hand. “Still wet,” I say. My body quivers and my forehead grows clammy. Jax’s glistens in the light, too.

“That’s impossible, we were gone
for hours.”

I hold my palm up to his face, spread my blackened fingers apart. Then, I point a shaky finger at the handprint in the painting on the wall. “Obviously it’s possible. Do you
feel sick?”

“A little. Like we were rocketed into another dimension or something, man—shit!”

“And our clothes are dry. I don’
t underst—”

“Tell us what’s going on!” he screams, voice echoing off the walls and into
the stillness.

“The paint,” I say. “Was it that wet when we went into the room? I have a feeling, somehow, wherever we went, time moved faster there. Or, I don’t know
. . .
sped up and slowed down again, or
. . . .
” My head spins from too much conflicting information. Nothing makes sense. It’s not possible, and yet
. . .
it is. Because we experienced it. It’s all
entirely incomprehensible.

Once we get back to the elevator, the door opens before Jax’s finger even reaches the button. We make uneasy eye contact, then cautiously step on and replace our breathers. The elevator rattles back up to our original floor without our telling it where to go, and when the door opens, I stumble out, weak in the knees and lightheaded. The door closes, and the light above it goes dark. Like nothing ever happened. Only the scent of citrus lingers in a stir of
primal dust.

“Where
is
The Wall?” I asked my daddy one night while he brushed my hair. We lived in Bunker A, where all of the Tree Factory workers lived
back then.

He cleared his throat. He hadn’t yet developed “the cough,” but “the tickle” had crept in, and he cleared his throat all too often. “The Wall?” he said. “Somewhere east. And you’re going to find it one day, I know you are.” He poked at my ribs, and I squealed. “I hear,” he whispered, “there’s an underground passageway that leads
straight there.”

“You mean like the trolley tunnels?” I’d never been in one, but I’d heard about them. People traveled from city to city in Bygonne through the
trolley tunnels.

“No,” he said. “Deep underground. Mysterious
. . . .
” Then he flipped a coin out from behind my ear and made it disappear. He was always doing magic, anything to make me smile. But he kept on and on about how someday I’d be free, through the mysterious magical wall to the green paradise of the
Other Side.

I didn’t realize it then, but I know now—he didn’t say those things to make me feel better, he said them to make himself feel better about leaving me. A few more years and his time would be up, too. No one makes it past thirty
in Bygonne.

Except for
the Superiors.

Someone
shakes me—

“Joy,
wake up.”

—and I moan in response, covering my head with my blanket, body aching with need
for sleep.

“Joy, it’s rise time
. . .
and Baby Lou’
s sick.”

My eyes pop open. Aby’s sitting on my bed, holding a whimpering brown bundle. I sit up and take her, cradling her to my chest. Heat rises from her dry skin like a furnace. That listless-eyed stare into nothing clamps a vice around
my heart.

“We need medicine.” Aby wrings her hands, avoids my eyes. She knows exactly what she’
s asking.

“I’ll ask
at breakfast.”

Arianna Superior, with her motorized, diamond-studded oxygen tank, comes to escort us to the common area this morning. This is unusual; she hardly ever steps a toe off of the catwalk. Usually Humphrey, or her stumbling, muttonhead son, or one of the other Superiors, comes to get us. Rumor has it she’s scared of the diseases we might carry, and of getting infected. But I know it’s not that. Her eyes are a dark and empty abyss of hatred and homicidal famine. Not one rotten piece of her decayed heart has shed an ounce of fear or care for humankind in a long, long time. No, she has other reasons for floating above us like the angel of death. Waiting for the perfect time to strike and take us from this life, perhaps.

My heart skips a beat. I’ve been so focused on Baby Lou and my need for sleep, only now am I remembering last night’s discovery. Or
. . .
was it a dream? It had to have been. I check my hand. Still, it bears remnants of
black paint.

Definitely not
a dream.

We all march quietly down the hall toward the disheartening smell of another foul breakfast. In my arms, Baby Lou gulps water from her bottle, shivering violently. I wrap her tighter in her blanket, and kiss her. “You’ll be okay, sweet Baby,” I whisper. “Momma Joy will take care
of you.”

When we get to the common area doorway, I step aside to let everyone pass. Then, I walk cautiously—not too bravely, not too feebly—up to Arianna Superior at the catwalk stairs. “Baby Lou’s sick with fever,” I say. “She needs medicine, or she’
ll die.”

Arianna Superior glances from Baby Lou to me, with no expression. She cocks her head with a click that chills my spine. “Is that so?” She draws out the last syllable like she’s sharpening a knife, seemingly amused by the possibility of Baby Lou’s death. Maybe she’ll help it along
. . . .
Or perhaps my begging arouses her lust for
our suffering.

She takes a long, dramatic breath into her golden mask, the diamonds on her tank twinkling in the overhead lights, and I remember my promise to Miguel. Someday, they’ll get theirs. But today, the bluff of weakness. Done right, you’ll get virtually anything you desire. One of the lessons learned from the sparse years I had with my parents—a prostitute, and a
gambling magician.

“Please, Madam Superior,” I say. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll do extra work, and
. . .
and anything I need to. Please
. . . .
”

Arianna Superior smiles. Except, it looks more like if you dug up a corpse and spread its rotted lips apart. “Very well,” she says. “Bring the beast to the office after breakfast. I have something you may do to
earn it.”

“Thank you, Madam Superior,
I will.”

I hurry to take my place next to Jax, as Humphrey makes his rounds with the slop pot. Diaz Superior stumbles down the catwalk to his mother and slumps into a chair. With a grimace of disgust, Arianna Superior leaves him to watch over us, and heads to the office. Seconds after she disappears, Diaz Superior closes his eyes and passes out, drunk. Humphrey eyes me as he ladles slop into my bowl, and gives me a slight nod. Jax shrugs at him. With everything that happened last night, we forgot to even look for his “payment,” and we had no choice but to sneak by his sleeping body and into
our dorms.

I grab his hairy arm and, leaning in close, whisper into his ear: “We found something that might be of interest to you. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the right tool for picking its lock. Next time, we’ve got you covered.” I wink and give him a flirty smile; a lesson from
my mother.

He rolls his eyes and continues down
the line.

“What’d you tell him?”
Jax asks.

“You know, about the lock we needed to pick next time?” I nudge his boot under
the table.

Whispers rise up as the children take advantage of Diaz Superior’s passed-
out drunkenness.

Jax nods. “This morning, I thought it was
a dream.”

“Me, too. In fact, if I didn’t have this here”—I show him the black paint on my palm—“I might have still thought it was. Seems impossible, right?”

Another nod. “We need to find
an explanation.”

“It’s our way out, that’s
the explanation.”

“Then why did it bring
us back?”

“Well, someone obviously led us down there. Maybe they knew we couldn’t leave
the children—”

“Why would someone lead us down there, and then not
show themselves?”

“I don’t know
. . .
maybe they’re shy
. . .
?”

With a roll of his eyes, he stuffs a bite of bread into his mouth. “There’d have to be a better reason
than that.”

“What are you two talking about?” Aby leans over, breaking away from her conversation
with Miguel.

“I’ll tell you later,” I say, and shovel slop into Baby Lou’s mouth and a few into my own, fighting back
a gag.

“Oooh, secrets?” Miguel snatches the lump of bread from Jax’s plate and rips off a chunk. “Let’s hear ’em.”

The room falls deathly silent, and Jax lays a finger to his lips, nodding slightly toward the catwalk, where Arianna Superior approaches her son. He’s slid halfway out of his chair, probably drunk off of six month’s rations. Arianna Superior jerks a leg back in her long, thick, black skirt and kicks with the force of a factory machine. Diaz awakes in an earsplitting scream, flailing to the floor, gripping an ankle bent sideways. Bone protrudes from the skin and red spurts through the metal grates, splattering on the concrete below. With one hand, she grabs him by the throat and drags him behind her toward
the office.

Humphrey stands rigid in the corner, like he’s peed himself, while the rest of us are frozen in shocked astonishment. I’m thinking Humphrey won’t be sleeping on the
job anymore.

“What
. . .
was that?”
Jax says.

“I don’t know,” Miguel replies. “But it’s about time somebody broke a few bones of his, right?”

Nervous laughter flits around the room for about two seconds before it’s cut off. Mona and Emmanuel Superior appear above us, no doubt gossiping. Mona’s wild hair has fat pink and green curlers in
it today.

“Sunday,” Jax and I mutter at the
same time.

She always wears those ugly curlers on Sunday. Usually, the black satin or velvet waistcoat would accompany a patterned skirt that mimics a bed covering. Today, though, she and Emmanuel wear new threads, and their matching peasant dresses make me choke on the laughter that almost bursts out. I play it off as though I’d swallowed wrong, but really, I’m dying. I’ve never seen anything
so ridiculous.

Emmanuel Superior flips a long brown curl from his shoulder—one of his worst wigs yet—and beckons to me with his usual
purple fingernail.

“Another glorious day at the Tree Factory!” Mona Superior sings, lifting her skirt and stepping over Diaz’s blood. Then, she sneers. “Now get to work, before I turn the
jumpers loose.”

With that, children hop from their seats to get in line. Most of them have never seen the jumpers the Superiors keep in their bunker as “pets-of-use.” Not many of them would like to. Except for Johnny, maybe; he has a fascination for stalking things in the dark. One night, he tracked something for three hours, only to find it was the smallest rat in the history of Bygonne. He ate it anyway, though, grumbling the
whole time.

I brush my arm against Jax’s; our usual greeting or departing gesture when we’re being watched. At the door, he takes his place at the front of the line. With a protesting Baby Lou, I start up the catwalk steps beneath flaring nostrils, a hairy nose-mole, and fake locks that may have nested families of vermin in their past life. Baby Lou whimpers, and her lip quivers. I brush a teeny curl from her eye as I reach the halfway point. That one act alone, I’m sure, makes the Superiors’ toxic blood bubble and churn beneath
their skin.

“Aww,” says Mona Superior once I’ve reached the catwalk. “Isn’t that precious?” Then, she smacks my face so hard my
ears ring.

“Ow!” I yell, flinching. “What was
that for?”

“For being such a filthy little trollop. I’m sure you’ve done something to
deserve it.”

Emmanuel Superior laughs, his pointy Adam’s apple bobbing above a choker of pink pearls. “Take your nasty excuse for a human being into the office. I don’t know why, but Your Madam Superior has decided to spare its life—
this time.”

When we finally get to the office, I’ll admit, I’m scared. Below me, Mona and Emmanuel Superior disappear behind the doors that lead to the Superiors’ bunker. They rattle shut as the smell of burning flesh greets me—unfortunately, a familiar smell when you’ve built trees your whole life. I know this stench well. A quick set-n-sear job on Diaz Superior’s ankle, maybe.

I knock swiftly, and Arianna Superior answers. Her son lies still in the corner on the floor, eyes closed, his freshly set, bandaged foot propped up on two pillows. I watch his chest
for breathing.

“Oh, he isn’t dead,” says Arianna Superior, “but he may be soon.” She glides over to the corner, and I swear her legs aren’t moving. Her skirt’s thick, sure. Still, it appears as though she’s
. . .
floating off the floor. I blink and refocus. She reaches a tall shelf, lifts an arm, stretches up and keeps going, like her body’s made
of rubber.

I
need sleep
.

I blink again, rub my tired eyes. She’s returned to normal height, a bottle in each hand, shaking one with a small amount of liquid in it. The other’s full. “Two drops, every four hours for the fever.” She hands me the nearly-empty bottle, then crosses to another corner of the room and picks up a pile of clothes. “When these are adequately washed and mended, you will get more medicine.” She drapes the clothes over my
free arm.

“Thank you, madam,” I say. “I’ll get them mended tonight
before bed.”

By the time I get back to the girls’ dorm, my arms are aching from the weight of Baby Lou and Arianna Superior’s atrocious clothes. The smell radiating from them is so grotesque, I don’t think I’ll ever eat again. Hard enough to eat in the
first place.

I drop the pile beside my bed, and lay Baby Lou down. She begins to cry, rubbing at her eyes with a shaky fist. “Shh, Baby, it’s okay. You’ll feel better soon.” I squeeze two drops of medicine into her mouth and hold it closed, puffing a quick breath into her nostrils to make her swallow. Then, I dip a small cloth into water, and soak down her curly hair and face, her trembling body. She cries from
the chill.

“I wish I could do more, sweetheart.” I affix her into the blanket sling on my back, where she’ll stay for half of the day until I can’t take the weight any longer, then I’ll lay her down in the playpen and hope she doesn’t cry the whole time. My options are
extremely limited.

Guilt and anger make me burn with fury, because I find myself thinking,
Maybe she’d be better
off dead
.

§

By the end of the day, I’ve reached a new level of exhaustion, barely able to hold Baby Lou in my arms. Or even move my arms. My feet ache, and my back and neck throb with hot, sharp pains. My eyes struggle to
stay open.

And I have ratty corpse’s clothes to mend.
Ugh
. But I’m doing it for Baby Lou, not for Arianna Superior, I have to remind myself
of that.

You take the dark with the light and
build on
.