by Jared Ravens
Vivian nodded and sighed.
“You’ll be able to control me,” she said, “But you won’t be able to control my mother.”
“You can bet on that,” Genesee said.
McKenna
The dark red walls of the oval shaped sitting room were covered in elaborate paintings. Takes from The Hill circled around McKenna: The story of Spaulding throwing a boulder at a mistress who had lied to him; Kilea guiding a man who angered her into the sea; Celia cutting Staley's head off. This last one had Celia in a state pose as her horrified family members watched a disembodied head tumble down a mountain.
Above these was Goetz, a cloud of white and black mist painted onto the rounded ceiling with Celia at the bend of the oval below him, facing her own worldly creations with awe.
The stories were always around McKenna, as would be expected of someone with a mother such as hers. It might have been assumed that this would indoctrinate her into the cult of Celia. It did the opposite. It made her question all of it. At times it made her nauseous. All the ass kissing, all the lies, all the made up stories; It was impossible for someone to untangle. Even the managers on The Hill didn't know what was true or not. Having an enterprising father compounded her frustration; his cynicism coupled with her mother's devotion created a chasm McKenna could not cross.
She had checked out early in life; knowing that to accept one of her parent's versions of events was to reject the others, so McKenna looked elsewhere for answers.
Her father wanted her to marry for money and power. In retaliation she engaged the least socially acceptable people she could find. Her mother wanted her to learn to channel the thoughts of Celia so she cut off her own thoughts whenever she felt an intrusion, often with the help of sugar root and grava.
She could hear the voices though, distantly. She would never tell her mother that, nor her father. She wanted to be as plain and invisible to them as possible. Surrounded by stories, she wanted to make her own.
Her first meeting with Felix had coincided with this split from her mother. Delia had sent her to a temple to learn about the rites during the break in their regular schooling. One of the rites was grievance and atonement, a process specifically designed by Celia. The girls would write down all of the the general grievances they had against boys and submit them to them, and the boys would write down their apologies for each of them. Being ten, McKenna recited the arguments that she had heard between her parents. She wrote that boys were too lazy, too stubborn, and absent for too long when women needed them.
The paper was submitted to a random boy on the other side of the temple attending the male classes. When the paper was returned to McKenna the next day there was no contraction on the page. The responses were polite questions, asking what she was talking about and why she had felt this way. Though she was instructed to further her attacks on the boy, she declined. She wrote a meeting spot at the bottom of the page and sealed it in an envelope before any of her instructors could look at it.
Felix had bounded into the alley way, thick curly hair flopping into his face. McKenna felt embarrassed for harassing someone she didn’t know with accusations but Felix felt no ill will. When she apologized he asked why she had written those things if she didn’t believe them.
“Because I didn’t know what else to write,” she replied. “That’s the thing they wanted so I wrote it.”
“Yeah,” said Felix. “I was supposed to say something back like ‘I’m sorry’, but it felt like I was lying so I didn’t do that.”
Lying. That was the word for it. She was following someone else’s truth and pretending it was hers. The atonement was only the most obvious example. She asked what he was doing at the temple’s school, since the few male attendees were usually only there for abuse.
“Parents,” he shrugged. “Rich kids go to this thing so they think it’s good for me to meet them. But it’s just me and five guys reading books by Celia and taking tests about how we are mean to women.”
“Isn’t that lying too?” McKenna had asked, wanting to be clever. “If you’re doing something someone else wants you to do just to make them happy?”
“I don’t think it counts if they’re bigger than you,” he had replied. “If they can force you to do it then you just have to do it, right?”
That was true enough for her. Her parents would not have approved of her new friend, so they hid their relationship and waited until they grew as tall as their parents. They did as they were told as they tested the limits of their power. He would come by her school every few days and walk her home and she would do the same at his school. She was certain that he liked her but he never made a move. Perhaps he was scared of her mother or in awe of her father. She occasionally wondered if he only spent time with her because of Theo. More than once he mentioned wanted to work for him.
What kept their relationship going, though, was mutual desire for honesty. Because they did not move in each other’s circles they could see what the other couldn’t see. He would call her out of being subservient to her mother’s wishes. She see that he was loafing down the easy road his father provided.
“Maybe I was right when I wrote that,” she told him once. “You are lazy.”
“Fuck off!” He hissed.
Much later, when he had an internship, she would come watch him in the courthouse. A large woman with hair flowing down to her ankles had sat with her eyes closed before crying with happiness. They let the person accused of stealing off with a fine, the judge's best interpretation of what the Primary had decided was the proper punishment. Felix had said with his head on his hand, watching what the clerk was doing. He looked miserable.
“Why are you doing this?” She had asked him later.
“What else am I supposed to do?” he sighed. “I’m not supposed to do the thing I want to do.”
“You want to ride on carriages and shoot people with arrows that try and rob them,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “Not exactly…”
“You want to be a bouncer. That’s what they do.”
“That’s the closest that I can describe it. And what do I tell my parents? I’m going to the east to punch toothless people out from the back of a wagon?”
“Theo would hire you,” she told him. “It isn’t a job people are scrambling to do.”
“I know,” he replied.
“But I’m not going to recommend you if you can’t even say you want to be that.”
He had fidgeted a bit before answering.
“How do you describe something you can’t describe?” He said.
“I know what you mean,” she nodded. “I don’t think you want to be a bouncer.”
“I don’t think they would hire someone my size anyways.”
“Wouldn’t matter to Theo. He doesn’t have to pay you if you get pulled off the wagon.”
It had surprised her when he had asked to be invited to her sister’s union. But it had thrilled it her. Felix and his family were not known for attention social occasions. She wondered if it meant he was finally taking control of his life and aiming for something higher. When she had told her father he had been confused.
“Him?” He asked. “The short, chubby one with the fluffy hair?”
“He’s a friend, dad.”
“He’s an expensive friend if he’s eating the food I’m paying for.”
“He admires you. He thinks you’re an amazing builder.”
This had melted Theo’s resistance, and she left his office with an invitation in hand.
When she saw Bautomet rampaging across the town Felix’s name had popped into her head. When The Beast was finally subdued she had run to his apartment and found it empty. She had gone from infirmary to infirmary until she found him, her mother looking down on him. The look her mother had given her gave her chills.
“What were you doing there?” She had asked Delia as she walked back towards the tower. “What does Celia want with Felix?”
“I don’t know
,” Delia replied, walking quickly ahead of her daughter. “She asked me to go there and I did.”
“And why? How did she know to send you there?” McKenna had yelled at her back.
Delia had stopped and turned to her daughter.
“I wish you wouldn’t assume that everything Celia does is for bad,” she had replied, calmly. “It’s the opposite.”
It had seemed to McKenna that what her mother was doing was more shameful, running out and offering her services to Celia as soon as she realized who the boy in the infirmary was. She was like an overeager student wanting her teacher’s approval. And the prize she was offering up was Felix. For what purpose she didn’t know.
Theo had been in his study all day, holding meeting after meeting, lighting candle after candle to talk to The Hill. The door to the penthouse had been in constant motion with groups waiting to see him. Once Theo realized what he was close to he had thrust himself into the center of some operation. She waited outside his office for him, as he had asked, and each time he came out he held up a finger and a smile, indicating she should wait. As he escorted out a rotund man from his office McKenna stood. Another man across the room from her did the same, both in the expectation they were next. McKenna walked towards him, determined not to be blown off again.
“I think we’ll need those guards tonight," he told the rotund man.
“Of course, they’ll be there,” the man said, nodding. “They’re young but I assure you, they’re good.”
“They can’t be any worse than the army,” Theo replied.
At the door the man turned, his face bright and friendly.
"Remember what I said. Consider it. Let them know..."
"Of course I will" Theo said, smiling, then shut the door quickly in his face. He turned and pulled his pipe out of his jacket. He was lighting a bowl of sugar root as he looked at his daughter and the man she was blocking.
“I’m next,” she demanded.
“Of course you are!” He said happily. “Victory waits for no woman”. She followed him back into his study. He strolled across the room absentmindedly and sat behind his desk and yelled for Maxwell.
“So,’ he asked her as she shut the door. “How do you know this fellow?”
“He’s a friend,” she said. “I need to know what’s going on. What’s your plan with him?”
He lit his pipe as the door opened again and Maxwell appeared along the back wall.
“Maxwell, draft a letter and send it to Davis and to Herrington. There's a committee and I want them on it. The women are going to be in the majority but he's asking for my opinion for the men.”
“A committee?” Maxwell asked.
“A civilian committee to liaison with The Hill about civil defense.”
“Who’s asking for your opinion?” Maxwell replied, his excitement and nervousness nearly bursting through his red cheeks.
“Who do yo think?” Theo replied slyly, puffing out smoke.
"Genesee?" McKenna interjected. Both of them looked at her, unaware that there was anyone else in the room. "Genesee is asking for your opinion?"
Theo smiled and leaned forward, putting his arms onto his desk.
"Your mother was right. The other night, when she was throwing a fit? It was about this." He threw his arm out, presenting the destruction in the window behind him was a theatrical production.
“That creature ran over half the city and nearly killed Felix,” she said. “Its not a time to celebrate.”
Theo nodded at Maxwell and he ducked out of the room. Theo fingered the end of his pipe.
“How well do you know this boy?” He asked.
“He’s a friend.”
“But you really don’t know anything about him.”
“His family is into judicial work,” she replied.
“OK,” he said, waving his hand before she could continue. “You don’t know him at all.”
“What do you mean? I’ve known him for years!”
“Did you know that his bones are harder than most of the iron I pull out of the ground?”
“I never checked,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Did you know,” he continued, standing up and coming around to the side of his desk, “that he’s best buddies with Celia’s daughter?”
“He didn’t mention that.”
“Did you know,” he said, leaning in a bit, “that his father was a bull?”
McKenna pulled back.
“He’s a man,” she said. “He’s not an animal.”
“He’s got very thick shoulders for a man, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’ve been told that,” he said, shrugging and going towards the window. “I haven’t seen him yet. I’m taking your mother’s word on that.”
“What was she doing there, a his hospital?”
“I think you know,” he said, eyeing the description in the window. It was a like a long brown and black scar that ran across the south part of the city. It was difficult for McKenna to fathom that one creature had done all that damage. “There was a civilian that stayed and threw flammable liquid at Bautomet while almost the entire army fled. He was burned and wounded but surprisingly unharmed. Your mother saw his name and ran down there to see him.”
“And now Celia wants him?”
“No, Genesee,” he said, turning to her and smiling, his thin face lined with happiness. “And he knows that we know him.”
McKenna place her head in her hands and breathed out.
“Felix is not… one of them…”
“He is.”
“No, he’s not,” she replied, looking up. “He’s just a boy.”
“He’s a thing,” Theo said, walking to the front of his desk and leaning against it. “A very important thing, and they will have him.”
McKenna was frozen, the entirety of bad possibilities running before her eyes.
“Theo….” She said, slowly. “Please, don’t…”
“They’re asking for my opinion on it,” he replied. “Don’t you see what this means for us? And for Felix. This is the opportunity any of us would want!”
“Not me!” She yelled, standing up. “Not him!”
“How do you know unless you ask him.”
Theo smiled again and took a drag on his pipe. He blew the smoke out to the side, away from her face.
“I’m not going to anything like that.”
“They won’t force him up The Hill,” Theo said. “But they will get him. Why can’t we all benefit?”
“Do you know what it’s like up there?”
“Felix is no longer going to have a normal life,” Theo replied. “He forfeited that. Now he gets to have a better experience.
“So you think,” she said as she stormed out of the room. She barreled down the hallway, pushing past servants and throwing open the doors to her mother’s room. She was in the center of her room, a woman at the hem of her dress. She turned but was unable to move as McKenna approached her.
“You ruined another life, congratulations.”
“McKenna,” her mother said sternly. “Check your tone.”
“You could have left Felix alone. I hope it was worth it. I hope Celia’s happy with what you’ve done.”
“She’s not,” Delia said sharply. She waved the woman away from her dress. The help quickly disappeared from the room. “Its a disaster. But she had to know.”
“Why? Why is it so important?”
“Because her daughter lied to her,” Delia replied. “Ogden lied to her, Vivian lied to her. That’s important. Someday you’ll understand that.”
McKenna circled her mother slowly.
“You could have just let him be. You didn’t have to go down there and see him.”
“Maybe that would have been for the better but that’s not what Celia asked. It wasn’t my idea. But I’m her daughter as much as Vivian, but I’m not disobedient like her.
“Celia heard about this boy from Atrios and Curson and
she told me - forced me - to go down and look at him. She peered through my eyes and she saw everything that made him up, and she was furious. Now its a mess. She doesn’t want him up there.”
McKenna glanced out the window. The view here was the east, where the glaring light shed a bright halo over the rolling hills of the forest.
“Is he OK?” McKenna said.
“He’s going to make it,” Delia said, her voice flat. “He’s very burned but quite resilient.”
“I want to see him.”
“You will,” Delia said. “You’re required to.”
Martel
First there was pain, followed by relief, a swim in the ocean of blackness. Orlando touched his face, and then lightening shot up his spine, then repetition as she pulled him closer again.
The disorientation was constant. At no point was Felix lucid enough to understand time or where he was. The agony was searing, vicious, biting at his side like a monstrous dog. A balm was applied and it satiated the fire. Day after day passed in a fiery dream, waking to have someone give him a pipe so he could lose himself in the smoke and plunge down into the abyss again.
The pieces never quite matched. The focus was not on coherence but on surviving from one moment to the next. When he came back up to the surface he had just moments to piece together what was happening and what had occurred.
He was staring into white light. He was covered in wrapping on his right side. He looked at it, feeling a painful burn aching to push its way out. He didn't feel that part of him was his any more. That side didn't even look like he remembered. His shoulder was different now, larger. Muscle and bone. He breathed heavily, not wanting to let himself think about it right now. He let his mind think it was a dream for a little while longer.
He looked around his room. It was large, white with red accents, steamy but with a gentle breeze through the open windows. There were a few other beds with unconscious people in them. It was unlike any hospital he had ever been in. This one was for soldiers.