ELEVEN
Epilogue
_________________________________________
TWO YEARS AND SIX MONTHS LATER
Lucy slid her empty bowl to the side and leaned back. The last of the warm red sun was sinking beneath the crop field. Her stomach was stuffed with grains and vegetables. The sun-kissed plants whistled as wind passed through their needle-eyed tips. Overnight those gaps would refill with Gen Water, extracted from the ground by the plants’ roots – or so she hypothesized – ready to attract the morning’s pollinators. She’d grown accustomed to the eerie sing-song of the fields, but given how delicious the plants were, she could hardly begrudge their quirks.
“Lucy, it’s time!” called Fliss, excitedly.
Fliss was giddy. It was her first ceremony.
Lucy got up from her comfortable chair on the porch with a weary smile, and grabbed her jacket. The singing usually went on a while after.
She followed Fliss to the yard of the old bar, where they always congregated for such events. The space was lit with fairy lights, and decorated with freshly-picked wildflowers. An excited hubbub emanated from the hundred or so villagers who had gathered for the evening.
Lucy gave Fliss a good luck hug, then dropped back. She skirted around to a quiet spot on the sidelines, as that month’s parents nervously gathered in the middle of the circle.
“Cheer up, kid,” said Ruth, digging Lucy in the ribs.
“I’m perfectly cheery, this is my happy face,” said Lucy, fixing her with some masterfully crafted sarcasm. She gave Ruth a playful nudge back, but it didn’t have quite the same impact, on account of the sailor’s powder-filled vest.
“What’s the forecast?” said Lucy, glancing up at the clear night sky, scanning for signs of birds. The constellations were coming into view, as the last of the sun’s rays disappeared.
“All clear. Jack’s volunteered to keep an eye on the radar while we’re out here. We refilled the smoke funnels this morning, so if anything changes, he’ll be on it,” said Ruth, breezily.
“He’s still in a mood, then?” said Lucy.
“Can you blame him?” said Ruth.
Lucy shrugged in agreement. Jack had been quite happy living the revolutionary life in DC, until Fliss had marched back into the city and plucked him out last year. Summer seemed to remind him of what he was missing out on, which was curious, given that much of DC was a stifling swampy mess during those months. That said, Lucy conceded, if you didn’t mind a bit of guerilla warfare here and there, the free movie theaters were a big plus point. Fliss, however, did mind her only surviving relative being embroiled in the fighting, and had chewed Kryz’s ear off until he effectively ordered Jack to leave, just to get some peace and quiet. Of course, since then, they’d heard that the Navy had struck a deal with the new Government, and Jack was itching to get back.
“Did I miss it?” said Karys, panting.
“Nah, you’re good,” said Ruth.
Karys sighed with relief, and tugged off her lab coat. It wasn’t the conventional gleaming white affair, but then again Karys didn’t work in a conventional lab. Lucy took comfort from the trusty, baggy, earth-brown garment Karys had selected as her uniform. For as long as she wore that, Lucy felt she understood her; and that the botanist remained quietly committed to their cause.
“Any progress?” said Lucy, dropping her voice to a whisper.
Karys shook her head, as she did every time Lucy asked.
“We’ll get there, I promise,” she added, as she always did.
Lucy nodded. She understood. The cure wasn’t Karys’s top priority. She’d done amazingly well to even find food that could sustain both populations simultaneously – with the right preparations for each, of course. Besides, the cure was hardly a topic they could discuss openly in the village. That research had to be done on the quiet.
Lucy felt a kiss land softly on the back of her head, as a pair of familiar hands squeezed her waist. This was immediately followed by the drumming and pawing of tiny fingers through her long hair.
“Hey, cut it out, no pulling, remember?” said Lopez, sternly.
Lucy turned to face him. He gave her a slightly hopeless ‘what can you do?’ look, as he gestured to the toddler sitting across his shoulders. The kid was at a wonky angle, on account of Lopez’s posture, but the child was unconcerned by this. It clutched his hair for stability, fashioning a set of reins from his follicles.
Lucy reached up and tickled the infant’s bronze and purple chin, prompting it to splutter with laughter. The child squirmed with one arm free, like it was attempting a mini rodeo. She leaned in and kissed Lopez on the cheek.
“Your favorite night of the month,” he said with a chuckle.
“Boy is it,” said Lucy, rolling her eyes.
A hush fell over the villagers as the celebrant – chosen at random each time – stepped onto a crate, with her infant strapped to her chest. She delivered a warm message of welcome, and invited the new parents to take their positions.
Fliss stepped up to the start line, along with the other nervous first-timers. She unfastened the sash strapped to her torso, and lowered it gingerly to the ground. There, she unfolded the material, revealing her tiny child nestling among the fabric.
The infant looked like her – it had her face structure, albeit in a podgy, kiddie kind of way. Either side of her, eight other anxious parents tenderly unfastened the carry sacks around their children. Obediently, in turn, they each stepped back, as the celebrant instructed.
A reverential hush descended on the assembly, broken only by the gurgles and murmurs of the unswaddled infants laid on the ground. For a long minute the village held its breath. Then the first children lit up.
Speckles of light shone out from the infants, becoming stronger by the second, until their bodies were covered in glowing, golden constellations. Gasps of delight sounded across the village, while they waited anxiously for the next stage.
Fliss and the other new parents took off their jackets and tops, revealing their bare torsos. One by one, their bodies lit up, as the scars from the lesions and blisters they’d suffered years or months ago glowed in twinkling gold.
Lucy scratched her arm, absent-mindedly. She’d never glowed. Lopez gave her shoulder a squeeze, as if reading her mind. She stopped fidgeting and focused on Fliss.
Fliss shuffled towards her child. They shared the identical pattern of glowing dots across their bodies. Like a fingerprint, it was unique, and distinct from the patterns on the families either side of them, whose lesions swirled in different formations entirely.
Fliss stood with her feet together, and her hands by her side, at the foot of her child’s swaddling. She bit her lip, and watched her infant with trepidation. Slowly but surely, the ebb and flow of their glowing torsos became phase-locked. The two beings basked in their shared glow.
One by one, the parents and children around them fell into sync first with each other, then with the rest of the group, until all eight parents and children glowed and faded in perfect unison. Lucy smiled sadly as she gazed at Fliss’s hope-filled face, and studied the nervous parental love in her eyes. The pulses of light became weaker, until the golden glowing pockmarks had faded from parents and children alike.
Fliss stood fretfully over her child, with baited breath. No-one dared to speak. Until, with a croak, and a gurgle, her baby opened its eyes for the first time, and gazed upon its mother. Fliss let out a disbelieving cry of relief, along with the other parents. The villagers let out a cheer of jubilation, as each parent scooped up their child with joy, and pressed them to their skin.
The villagers rushed in to congratulate their neighbors.
“Be right back,” said Ruth, with a grin, fighting her way into the cheering crowd.
“Ditto that,” said Karys, hurrying after her.
The humans were often the keenest to congratulate the parents at these gatherings. Only after the ceremony could they hold the babies without fear of becoming infe
cted.
“You OK?” said Lopez, giving Lucy’s hand a squeeze.
She looked at the assembled people, and the joy in their eyes, as they celebrated the lives they had never expected to live. She felt the cool air in her long, muddy hair. She thought of Dan, and what he’d have wanted for her. She looked at Lopez’s kid, who was clapping his hands together imprecisely, while grinning ear to ear at the general sense of excitement, and she squeezed his hand back.
“Yeah, I’m OK.”
END.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcus Martin began his writing career creating dramas and comedies for theater and radio/podcasts, before expanding into the world of books. He is also an avid composer and songwriter. He’s currently based in Cambridge, UK, where the buildings are old, the science is pioneering, and the trees are plentiful.
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