WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) (8 page)

            “There will be a communion of Fathers today to determine your fate,” he tells her.

            “Determine her
fate?
” I say, my need to protect her overriding my new nonchalance about her wellbeing.

            “It’s okay,” she says to me, almost as if she expected me to lose control. I turn to look at Father Gold. All that punches through my head is whether or not he knows about the map—if any other explanation besides that is even possible to make sense of this.

            As I watch him, I know he has her in a trap now. His face lights up. He speaks slowly and directly to her:

            “We will cast sentencing for you
both
at the communion. To touch metal is one of the gravest sins,” he continues. Then, to my complete surprise, Maze submits.

            “He didn’t touch it, Father. It was only me,” she says. I look at her, speechless, and before I can object, prepared to return to the original defense that neither of us touched any metal, Father Gold sighs like he’s deeply relieved, and then a gross smile spreads his thin lips.

            “I knew it. Only
you
would do such a thing. And to bring him so close to it—why,
that
is an additional sin indeed.”

Suddenly, it all starts to make sense to me. That the Fathers did see us out in the Deadlands. And that’s how they know. They must have seen us. Because nothing else fits anymore. But now, Maze has fallen on the sword for me. And if they saw us both, why is he letting it happen to her? That’s when the truth really hits me—if they saw anyone out there, it was
me
, in the alleyway. They shouldn’t even know she was there at all, let alone that she touched metal. None of it adds up, but I can’t keep working through it because Father Gold stands up. 

            “I’ll send a Father with your judgments tonight. Wills, you are dismissed. Father James, please see him home.”

            And when I turn around, there’s Father James, back in the room with us, as if he never left.

            “What are you going to do?” I say, unable to keep my anger in check any longer.

            “Do not worry, Wills. Maze will be kept under our watch until the judgment is leveled. Go with God.”

            Father James’s hand clasps my arm, and as much as I don’t want to move, he begins to tug me out of the room. I look at Maze, hoping for any kind of communication to come from her—even some sign of hope concealed in her eyes. But there’s nothing. Just a dead stare. As if the ever-adapting Maze has finally met a situation she can’t get out of.

            “Maze,” I say, as Father James tugs me out. But she doesn’t even make a whisper. Her face turns back to Father Gold and I only see her raven hair. And then, there’s nothing.

Chapter 5

Father James shoos June away on the street when she hops up alongside of us, trying to get the scoop on what’s happened to Maze.

            “Where is she Wills?” she asks.

            I can’t even get the words out. Part of me wants to kneel down and whisper to her, just like Maze did, and tell her we’ve got to get Maze out of there. Free her somehow. But I can’t involve someone so little in such an awful thing as this. And finally, I just watch her go, her face torn by confusion and disappointment. Finally she looks away, downtrodden and scared, wondering what will become of her friend, and in the eyes of the Fatherhood, the worst influence on her young life.

When I get inside, the exuberance my mother initially had for my safe return is gone. She begins by telling me that I am officially forbidden from hanging out with Maze. I tell her that it’s impossible—we see each other all the time. That we live right next door to each other. And we’re best friends. But she’s more resolved than I’ve ever seen her to put an end to our friendship this time. And when she begins to include God’s will in her rant, I tell her I’m going out. She tells me I can’t, and that she’s making lunch, but I don’t care anymore. I just storm out of the house.

I can tell I’m being followed by Fathers when I walk down to the edge of town. Some of my friends watch too, and even little June follows me some of the way, until I see one of the Fathers tell her to get back home. And then, once I reach the wooden fence at the end of town, near the trailhead that leads to the beach, I sit down. Right there under the hanging branches of the fat trees, and I think about last night. The night we spent together, sleeping on the beach. I think about what’s going to happen to her, and what Father Gold must be saying now. My mind reels through everything—the mirror being real, the possibility that Maze is right about there being an Ark. Then, standing up, I try to spot the dark gray spire of the tower. But I can’t see anything through the trees and the high ridges of clouds. On the clearest days, you can see it from anywhere in the town. But today, as if the sky is reflecting my mood, it doesn’t give me one glimpse.

            When enough time has passed that the Fathers have stopped hovering, and I know my mother won’t bother me, I sneak back into the house. I grab some of my drawing paper and some of my charcoal. And then, sitting outside in the shade, near some of the Fathers who I think are only pretending to be working in the gardens, I draw.

            The dark lines crawl across the paper and calm me down. I sketch out the field and the fractured tracts of the Deadlands. And I don’t even care who happens to see what I’m drawing. I feel like with each forbidden stroke of black, I’m silently telling the Fatherhood to go screw themselves. I put in every detail I can remember—the bears, the wolves, the containers, the weeds, the split glass—and then the mirror and the platform it was spinning on. I draw the metal staircase spiraling up forever, and the winding road that cuts through the straight grid-like squares of every other road. And the metal—metal everywhere. The necessary ingredient to technology. To the old world. The life I’m convinced was far better than this one. The one the Fatherhood doesn’t even want us to imagine. And then, when hours and hours have gone by and I’ve drawn enough pictures of the Deadlands and the beach and the tower and eventually even the gorgeous lines of Maze’s face that my hand is cramped and aching, I head back into the town.

            It’s almost night and I know the judgment should be coming soon. After I stuff the pictures, neatly folded, into my pocket, I head back inside. There’s a plate of brown grains and mushrooms on the table. It’s cold but I devour it anyway. Mother is nowhere in sight. She must have gone back to the chapel, like she does when she has anxiety. This time to pray for my absolution no doubt, because the promise of the afterlife to her is more important than the promise of each day we live. The thought disgusts me, so I start to visualize Maze again, trapped somewhere. Probably in one of the Father’s cells.

It’s almost dark when I hear someone knock on the door. I open it and, standing on the step, holding a small torch, is Father James. He asks if he can come inside. I tell him of course, and then I ask him where my mother is.

            “She’s still at chapel. And you should thank her for it when she returns. All of that praying will be a good head start in the process of your atonement.”

            I do everything I can to wait it out—to not blurt out the question—to not ask what the judgment is, and more importantly, what Maze’s judgment is. Finally, after he asks for tea from the stove, and I have to start a fire and get some water boiling for him, I can’t take it anymore.

            “Do you have the judgment?” I ask as I pour the steaming liquid and wait anxiously for a reply.

            “Well Father?” I say when it’s clear he’s ignoring me. At that moment, the door opens. It’s my mother. She walks in quietly, and then, when she looks at me, there’s a serene smile on her face. She just leans in and kisses me. As if nothing is wrong, and nothing ever happened. It’s the same as always—as if the chapel somehow brainwashes her back into some made-up sense of peace and ease. As if she’s actually done something up there all day instead of just waste her life away. But it makes my life easier, and she has a seat and asks for her own cup of tea. I pour another one, but the thought hits me loud and clear. If I ask about Maze now, my mother will object. She doesn’t want me inquiring about her at all. So I just wait. Father James and my mother go through their greetings, and then at last, as if the waiting was all some sadistic game, he slips forward onto the table a slip of paper.

            “Here is your judgment,” he says.

            “Read it aloud,” my mother says. I take the paper and unfold it, and then, I start to read it to myself. When the shock settles in—the shock that it’s nothing at all, that I barely received a punishment—my mother chides me for not reading it aloud.

            “Sorry,” I say, and then I reread my judgment, aloud this time. “Five special services with Father Gold, and a daily confession for the next month, along with mandatory attendance at all three services each week.”

            I immediately feel hope rise that this must be indicative of the punishment Maze received, too. That she got the same light slap on the wrist. But then, freezing up my whole body, my eyes lock onto the final words I have yet to read:

These judgments have been leveled for your association with Maze Orantis, convicted Toucher of

Metal. Until all reforms are completed, all further contact with her is strictly forbidden.

            “No!” I say, in disbelief. The guilt pours through me—how could they convict her and not me? I raise my head and stare at Father James, and disregarding how my mother reacts, I try to find out what they’re going to do to her.

            “What was her judgment? What
reforms
?” I ask.

            “Wills—you are
done
with her. Do you understand?” mother objects.

            “Tell me,” I demand, the thought of admitting that it was me who touched the metal and not Maze running through my mind. Any elaborate lie that might allow me to trade places with her now, get her out of this. Because I know that my record is spotless compared to hers, and anything I can do to shift the blame now could save her from something horrible.

            “The young man should know,” says Father James, looking at my mother as he sips his tea.

            “Fine. Maybe it will do him good to know,” she says.

            I hold my breath, fear flaring in me from the words of my mother, because what she said makes it sound like she already knows. I watch them both, and then it hits me—she hasn’t been praying. She was in on this. Pulling her weight to make sure Maze received something terrible. And she already knows what they’ve decided to do to her. She’s been working on making it happen all day. And then, when it comes out of Father James’s mouth, I feel my gut sink through the floor.

            “She is to become a Saint,” Father James says.

            “How could you let this happen!” I burst out, standing up, unable to fathom it’s real. That Maze, the girl I’m in love with, will be gone forever.

            “It has been coming for quite some time, Wills. You can’t say you didn’t see it. And quite frankly, I don’t see why it should anger you so much. There is hardly a more merciful judgment among the mortal fates,” Father James says.

            My mother turns to face me, summoning in her visage a sudden look of compassion, some false concealment of her hand in this I’m sure, and all I feel welling up inside me is hatred. For her, for Father James, for Father Gold, and for the entire Fatherhood. I want to scream at them both—tell them the new secrets Maze and I discovered—the same ones that yesterday I would have said were conspiracy theories. But now, I realize I believe in just what Maze believes, and I can’t deny it anymore. Still, the words don’t spill out of my mouth. Father James, as if his business of delivering the horrible news has been a cheerful event for him, strides out with a smile, his torch guiding him into the street, wishing us both a pleasant evening. He tells me, before he goes, that he will see me in the morning for confession, which will be followed by my first special service with Father Gold.

            It’s when he’s gone, when the silence of the house envelops me, that my rage truly begins to boil. But my mother tries to console me, as if she suddenly understands how much it hurts. And all I want to do is slap her hand away, off of my cheek where a tear rolls down and into my mouth. But I keep everything bottled inside. Because there is no way that lashing out at her will help the situation. It cuts through me every second that I have to figure something out. Something that I can say to Father Gold that will change the judgment. Because there’s no way I can let this happen. Maze can’t become a Saint. It would be worse than death for her.

            The explanation of Sainthood rolls through my imagination and I can’t help but visualize it: a removal of self-will, as the Fathers name it, that Maze and I both know is some kind of chemical drug that causes retardation. That according to the lies of the sermons, opens one up to God’s will when the self-will has proven unable to correct itself. The complete and purest incarnation of a simple follower of God, they say. For minds that, because they are constitutionally incapable of reform, will be stemmed of sinful thought by a miracle of the Fatherhood, and renewed with child-like openness and hope. The utter annihilation of personality.

            I play along with my mother, pretending like I’ve accepted the judgment so she’ll leave me alone and head to bed. I keep every emotion under control, every sign that I plan to help Maze, and then I escape to my bedroom. The four walls taunt me with dark swirls that climb the oak. I watch the window, the high line of trees and the dusky knot of clouds blocking the stars. And all at once, a million schemes run through my head. How to break her out, how to get her free from the chapel before Father Gold sends her off to Sainthood. Each one of my ideas seems crazier than the next, and every plan revolves around first heading into the forest, finding the knives buried in the hollow tree where Maze planted them, and then returning to Father Gold’s chamber to slit his throat while he sleeps. But each time I visualize the action, it dawns on me that I’m too much of a coward to pull anything off. That there’s absolutely nothing I can do. The only idea that seems to make sense is to plead with Father Gold in the morning, to tell him I touched the metal, that I put Maze up to it, and she was just trying to save me, so she lied.