The Bastard

by V. K. Ludwig

  “Did you decide if you want to continue as our teacher here?” Isabelle asked.

  I looked over to the photo plastered wall above her desk, and my eyes got stuck at the large canvas print. The field trip to the Basilica of the Holy Mary. Two of the three naves in ruins, the center one had survived the ages with no more than a few broken windows. Although pale, the awestruck paintings on the ceiling remained untouched by time. In front of the building, eight children plus one inside Isabelle’s huge baby bump. That was before churches, and other religious grounds were black-zoned. Nobody knew better than the council — not even the long-forgotten gods of the past.

  “I don’t believe I can.” Tears welled at the bottom of my eyes. I jumped up and shuffled over to the window. “At least not for now. I really love them. You know I love them, right?”

  I only turned my head enough to see her nod from the corner of my eyes.

  Isabelle sighed. “Sweetie, there was a time in my life where I figured a child was all I needed to be happy. To feel complete. As if all my problems would suddenly disappear once I pushed those nine pounds out.” She paused for a moment as if to gather her thoughts. “I guess I’m just trying to say that babies aren’t a go-to solution for whatever needs fixing.”

  I disregarded her words as a weak attempt to distract me. Large round eyes with sweeping eyelashes, framed by frizzy wisps of jet black hair. For months, I had fallen to sleep with her face in front of me. A picture so real I wanted to kiss her cheeks and sing her my mother’s lullaby. The mental image faded the moment I stepped out of the procreation clinic.

  “And now you have Rose,” I said and pressed my nose and forehead against the glass.

  “Yeah.” She gazed over to the bassinet. “Now I have Rose. But here’s the thing. I still don’t feel complete, and she didn’t exactly perform that miracle on my problems and made them disappear.”

  I eyed her warily. Did she regret her insemination?

  “Don’t get me wrong!” she quickly said as if my eyes had given my thoughts away. “I love Rose more than anything. But sometimes I can’t fall to sleep at night, speculating about what I gave up to have her.”

  For a long moment, she played with the maroon and fawn wooden beads on her bracelet. In the center, a deer carved of blonde wood missed one leg. The things she had to give up? Like what? I’d gladly survive on finger foods, two-minute showers and four hours of sleep at night if only…

  “Anyway,” she said and walked over to me. “What did the talent counselor offer? I found out they are looking for someone to teach the morning meditation group over the other community home. It’s less than thirty minutes with the tram and —”

  The dismissive wave of my hand silenced her. “They already filled that position. There’s really nothing else out there right now unless I would move to one of the southern districts. Or go to teach at one of the clans… yeah right.”

  “Which clan?” she asked and gave my shoulder a rough tug.

  My face peeled off the window and left a greasy imprint behind. All color had disappeared from her face, and she clasped her hands so tightly, her knuckles turned a spotted white.

  “It doesn’t matter, because I won’t go. No need to freak out like that!” I wiped my sleeve across the glass. “But I believe he said it’s the Clan of the Woodlands. Wait, that’s the one with the many trees, right?”

  I gave a one-shoulder shrug. Four trees or four thousand; it was all the same to me. “It’s not like there is any difference between them,” I said. “They are all equally dangerous, especially for women. I really don’t understand why the council would accept their sperm samples for our databank. Who would want to use them?”

  “Are you kidding?” Isabelle cocked her head. “Most women love the clan donors. It won't surprise me if their samples start a new trend next year. Leona had herself inseminated with one. And Sebastian’s donor is from a clan as well.

  “Huh,” I mumbled. “That explains why he is so tall. He is only twelve and already reaches my chin. Well, that’s not a choice I ever have to struggle with,” I gave a hollow laugh.

  “Unless…” she trailed off.

  Her eyes dashed around the room like a brainstorm on steroids. She scrunched her nose. Her mouth turned into a wicked smile that jumpstarted a tingle in my extremities. Her raised eyebrow promised trouble. What is she up to now?

  My voice came out high-pitched and frantic. “Just say it already! Unless what?”

  She grabbed my hands and pulled me over and down to the couch. Then, as if the doorknob was a known tattletale, she flung a thick sweater on it and kneeled down in front of me.

  “Unless you convince the talent counselor to send you to that clan. Once you are there you —”

  “Are you crazy?” I shouted. “I don’t want to be rhmh —”

  “Sh.” She pressed her palm onto my mouth and listened to the steps outside our room. With each footfall, her fingers trembled on top of my lips. When the flip-flopping faded into the community kitchen, she turned back to me and removed her hand.

  “Think about it, Ayanna,” it bubbled out of her. “If you go to that clan and gain access to their sperm samples, you can impregnate yourself with one.”

  “The council would never allow it.”

  She shook my shoulders. “It’s not like you will ask them for fucking permission, Ayanna. A few months ago a girl from the Quartz District ran away with a young man. They tracked them down, of course, but the council just brushed it under the rug. With the nonconformists regrouping, the last thing they need is another scandal. Once you come back, they’ll do everything to keep your story from the public eye and just leave you alone.”

  “Who told you all this?” I asked. “I never heard they regrouped.”

  Her idea was insane. I knew that. Or, let’s say my brain knew it. My body, however, rebelled by pushing bursts of hope through my veins and into my chest. Joy flowered from my heart. Wait! Am I insane now too?

  “I can’t,” I said and ignored the goosebumps along my arms. “I don’t care if others love their donors. I can’t have a child from a clansman. They are nothing but savages who treat women like a precious resource they can trade with.”

  Isabelle shot up to her full height and into a wide stance. “Why would you say something like that? Have you ever met anyone from a clan?”

  I squirmed on the couch. “Um, no but —”

  “But you heard things, right? Use your brain for a moment, would you? Didn’t you say they are looking for a teacher?”

  “Yes,” I nodded.

  “Is that your definition of a savage? Parents looking for a teacher for their children?”

  Her questions threw me off. She clenched her fists into furious balls and waited for my answer. Why does she defend them like that?

  “Ok, then they educate their children. But that doesn’t change that they slaughter each other over power and women. And the rape reports.”

  “That clan didn’t have a single rape reported ever since…” her words trailed off again, and she cleared her throat. “Ever since their new chieftain established a law. Men aren’t allowed to come close to women unless it’s their wife. If they do, they’ll be taken to the ash zones.”

  Ash Zones. The word alone caked on my tongue, leaving a bitter taste and painful childhood memories behind. Isabelle blurted the words, but most people only breathed them in a mere whisper. Nobody ever left the Districts, but rumors of the outside world still slipped through the hairline gaps of the giant wall that surrounded us. I heard what kind of people lived in the Ash Zones. Rapists, murderers and whatever other scum managed to survive somehow. Like my dad.

  I pressed my eyes shut for a second and took a deep breath. This day was bad enough already. No need to replay things I’d rather forget.

  “And you assume those men can control themselves?” I asked, more to distract myself than out of genuine curiosity.

  “You make it sound like it’s a matter of gender. If
that would be the case, then why do our women have to drink enhanced water too? Did that ever cross your mind?”

  It did not. And why would it? If I knew nothing about bodily desires, how would I know if I could control them?

  “I say the fact that men started to rape women is a pointer, wouldn’t you agree?” I asked.

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Unfair. Consider the millions who died and the inequality of numbers. What do you believe would have happened if it was the other way around? What would women have done if we outnumbered men by five to one?”

  She flung her eyes up as if she considered her own idea for a second, but my mind drifted off to that dirty little plan of hers. I couldn’t just go and knock myself up. Or could I?

  “You’re considering it, aren’t you?” Isabelle smirked.

  “No, I’m not,” I assured her, my voice as convincing as the peep of a mouse. Big round eyes. Jet black hair. I saw it clear once more. The face of my unborn daughter stole my breath. “You make it sound like an easy thing to do. Assuming that… and I am saying assuming, ok! Assuming I got one of those samples. How do I actually impregnate myself? Do I go to the chieftain and ask him if he can shove it up there?”

  She coughed a few times as if I had said something shocking. But, was there anything that actually shocked Isabelle?

  “There are little impregnation kits,” she eventually said. “The computer has an integrated hormone dispenser. It prepares your body for insemination. A needle pokes you once a day to check on your hormones and alert you when you are ready. And then you fill a tube with a sample and insert it into —”

  “Sh, ok, ok, I got it. But aren’t they illegal ever since we started to screen embryos again?”

  “Heck, yes. Super illegal,” she said. Then she leaned over and came close to my ear. “Nala has one. She showed it to me.”

  Super illegal. Yikes! I hadn’t even done anything yet, and my mouth already turned dry as a glass full of sand. “But Leona was implanted at the clinic.”

  She glanced over to Rose’s bassinet. It had started to sway. “She was,” Isabelle whispered in a hurry. “Nala stole it from her doctor’s office. She planned on selling it on the dark web but eventually forgot about it.”

  “But —”

  She grabbed my hands and her eyes locked with mine. “Do you want to be a mother?”

  But what if it didn’t work? What if they refused to send me? I pulled the white flower collar of my dress and patted the back of my neck. Is that sweat? My stomach lay in knots.

  Did I want to be anything else but a mother? Longing whispered through me and made my heart jolt. Do it!

  I squeezed her hands. “Where exactly is that computer?”

  Chapter 5

  A bastard

  River

  Wisteria had twisted its stems around the bay window of the two-story home. The bricks must have been whitewashed once; now they looked like someone had vomited half-digested spinach all over the North-facing wall.

  Inside, the scratched hardwood floors told stories about dogs who used to pace the hallway when they heard the owner’s car pull up the drive. Expensive looking old-world furniture stood around the living room, each piece more unnecessary than the one before.

  Monk sniffed at the bottom of the stairs and lifted his leg. That’s right. We came for something much more precious than the Mahogany roll-top desk. And we knew we could find it upstairs.

  Oriel held up a hand full of smut magazines, each one sporting huge blinkers and bare asses. “Does this answer your question? It was clearly the room of a boy, and he was a puberal, horny son of a bitch.”

  Damn. What would I give to slap my palm across one of those. Just once in my life.

  “Aren’t we all?” I smirked.

  I ripped the blinds open, and a swoosh of century-old dust blasted into the air. Oriel rolled his eyes at me and pulled his shirt over his nose.

  “How about this one?” He reached out for a book, and the ancient wooden shelf squeaked and strained underneath the movement.

  I glimpsed at the mold-stained cover. “Already got it.”

  He flung it in the corner of the room with a sigh. “I don’t get why Rowan keeps sending us to find more books. One of these days that monster of a shelf we have at school will collapse and kill a child.”

  I gave a half-lived shrug, caring little about what Rowan ordered. He told me to jump, and I asked him how high. That’s how we got stuff done at the clan.

  “So,” Oriel said and flung himself into a rocker. Cracks wide enough to push good old Abe into them gaped from the aged wood. When Oriel shifted around, the rocker sighed like an old lady who had slipped on ice. “Did you decide what you’re going to do about the school project?”

  His question made me comb my fingers through my hair. My eyes darted around the room, but neither the crushed table lamp nor the basket with bloody rags could help me here. I stared down at my holo-band. Three hours and twenty-one minutes left to decide. Shit! Why did this have to happen now?

  I had it all planned. Take the gravel back road along highway 59. Spend the night at Beautiful Bride in Creekville. No chance anyone would suddenly show up there. We barely had women. Who might need a wedding gown? Bet that place had been left untouched ever since shit hit the fan.

  From there I would work myself through an ocean of evergreens, always following the lake up North. I only had to work myself from one secluded homestead to the next… and ask the right questions. Have you ever seen this woman? Where did she belong? Why did she leave?

  The locket burnt like a hot skillet around my neck as a reminder that I had to do right by her. Why did she show up at the Clan of the Woodlands to give birth to me? What did she run away from? I wanted to know it all, but only one question kept me awake at night: who the fuck am I?

  I sighed, and a headache crept up the back of my head. “I don’t know man. It’s some fucked up shit.”

  “You know this could be huge for the clan, right? Our trade agreements with them are running as smooth as the inside of my Thermo underwear. There could be a bunch of awesome stuff in there for us,” Oriel said and pushed himself back, balancing his weight on the chair’s two back legs.

  “Huh,” was all I answered. I hated how guilty his words made me feel. I got it. The kiddos spent too much time trapping squirrels, and not enough learning their multiplication tables. But it tore me apart. The wondering if she actually wanted me. The not knowing if my dad cut firewood for a living, or throats before he pulled insulated boots off a man’s corpse.

  “I have to find out,” I said and turned my attention back to the books. At least those didn’t get my eyes all burning and shit.

  “It’s just really fucking dangerous up there,” Oriel said, the chair howling underneath his weight. “You’re gonna come back speaking fluent French with a beaver under your arms.” His mouth curved into a sly smile.

  I shook my head with narrowed eyes. “A prime example why we need more books. Your jokes are outdated. You’re like… three-hundred years too late.”

  “Just because its old doesn’t mean it's not funny anymore,” he said. “Besides, we don’t —”

  Crack! Wood splintered. The chair leg caved in. Oriel fell back with flung up arms, and backward rolled clashing against the wall. A framed picture fell off and landed on the carpet next to him.

  “Fucking garbage,” he said and rubbed the back of his shoulder, his face crimson red.

  “Why didn’t you just blast that air horn on that shelf there? I had no idea you got a desire to die,” I said and picked up the seashell embellished wooden frame. I held it between my fingers, gazing at the weathered picture. Time and moisture had made the faces a blur, but I could feel the good vibes emanating from it. A Ferris wheel stood in the back, brightly lit in colors of yellow and blue. “Do you think they made it?”

  Oriel pushed himself up and rubbed the dust off his jeans. He tried the same on his black shirt but quickly wav
ed it off as a lost cause. When he looked over the frame, his face went ashen like the grass stalks around Yellowstone.

  “I saw a well house outside. Chances are they made it. Or… wait.” He pointed at the right bottom corner. “That’s a baby right there. If they made it, then not for long… the walls are closing in on me, man. Meet me outside once you’re done. I gotta get some fresh air.”

  Yeah, I got how he felt. How many twenty-first-century family albums did I find? On howling attics, in stuffy basements or on wire shelves in walk-in closets. Hundreds.

  Each of their faces played like a dark movie in front of my eyes. None of them died of old age. Instead, they suffocated underneath ash layers, were strangled to death over a can of potato soup or blew their brains off if they still had the bullet left.

  He shuffled through the relics of what has once been a family’s life story. A map from a road trip to Chicago. Fragments of a mug which might have spelled ‘Best Dad Ever’. On the bed rested a stuffed animal, its fluffy guts ripped out.

  I counted the seashells on the picture frame. Thirteen. Enough to feed a family of three for two months or more. And not the creamed wheat and kale type of thing. More like savory elk sausages, honey mead and imported pomegranates from the Peridot District. I hung it back on the nail above the nightstand.

  A book peek-a-booed from underneath the bed. Once I pulled it out, a box tumbled to the side and spilled a bunch more of them. Jackpot. ‘Reading for the Slow Learner’. ‘ADHD: take charge of your life’. Geez. The Districts would probably have castrated a guy like him. Flaws didn’t exactly fit their agenda.

  Grinning from one ear to the other, I left the remnants of the family home. “Alright, go start the car,” I shouted, and squeezed myself through the overgrown hedges towards the front of the house.

  Pushing myself through the buttery soft leaves and angry thorns, I caught a whiff of something rancid. Like a bucket of guts left in the July sun for three days. The stench poked into my nostrils like a dagger, and I fully expected blood dripping from them at any moment now. What is this god-awful smell?