by K. L. Kettle
“Wait,” I try and say. “No, but—”
“Jude?” says the Chancellor, right in front me now, all charm. “May I have this dance?” It’s not a request.
What about Walker?
“Jude.” Her soft voice is insistent. She holds out her hand, bows to me, grey eyes burning.
No choice. I bow like I’m meant to. The crowd squeals, cheers, oohs and aahs.
“A pleasure,” I say under my breath, like we’re taught. Maybe this is when she’ll tell me she’s let you go, that you’re safe. I gave up Ro so now we’re square.
When the Chancellor takes my hand, she squeezes it so tight my knuckles ache as she leads me to the open floor. In the shadows, the fog-masked Lice surround the clapping, whistling audience. Is Aspiner among them? The Lice have moved from the doors. Why? To protect the Chancellor or to keep an eye on me?
“No need to be nervous,” the Chancellor says, my hand shaking in hers.
Don’t let them see you sweat, Walker said. Boys sweat. Men smoulder. Thanks to the infirmary, there’s no chance.
“I’m not,” I say. “Where’s Vik?”
She shark-smiles under her diamond eye‑mask. “Confidence, I love it.”
My shoulders pull tight like Walker taught me. That’s it, perfect poise. Chest out. Jaw set, that’s what Walker says. When the music starts again, I follow. Trumpeters toot. Clarinets echo the trumpets. A woman warbles and scats to a brassy chorus. Everyone cheers as the Chancellor whirls me round and round.
My feet move as if they belong to someone else, link step, rock step, chassé, link.
You’re meant to be enjoying it, Walker said.
Dancing was my freedom once.
Link step, rock step, chassé, link.
This isn’t dancing. Maybe to her, but there’s nothing inside me. Just movements. My body wants to stop, but I can’t let it.
Link step, rock step, chassé, link.
There’s that boy somewhere, the boy who danced, the one they told not to, the one they locked away until he stopped. And he’s been such a good boy.
Out of breath, we bow to each other, to the audience. My body is numb and I want to be sick. There’s victory in the Chancellor’s eyes and I know – right then – she’s never going to just let you go.
When I look up, there’s Ro. Right at the edge of the crowd. My chest hurts to think she saw me dance with the Chancellor. Saints, I want to disappear.
Ro’s half-mask is white, her dress as red as her hair, green eyes staring at me, blank with horror. Doesn’t she know that I don’t get a choice in what I do, unlike her? The most powerful woman alive asks you to dance and – even if your life doesn’t depend on it – you dance. Girls like Romali, they get to say no. They get to blame us for choices we’re never allowed to make.
I should be angry at her, but it just hurts.
The festivities don’t stop. Hours, dancing. Hours, stepping on toes. Apologizing, over and over. The women sigh as if it doesn’t matter. Dancing doesn’t feel like it should. I should be sweating but whatever the doctors pumped me with has stopped that. Should be free to move but everything hurts. Should be able to shake my head loose but there’s this shouting inside – how dare she be angry? Doesn’t she understand? What, does she think I’d ever want to be with the Chancellor? All I wanted to do was help my friend! I keep looking for Ro but I’m not sure why. To explain? To warn her? To say goodbye…
The music changes but it always sounds the same.
It always sounds the same.
Masked women and girls scratch their name from my card when their turn comes. They swoop me up in their arms, spin me, step in, step out. Again. And again.
Gasping for breath, trying to avoid the queue of women searching for me, I hide behind a pillar. The cold stone helps my aching bones relax when I press my spine against it.
Someone’s watching. I can feel it. Maybe it’s Ro.
The next girl on my card appears. We dance, we skip and spin, in the same damn place.
The same damn place.
After every turn round the dance floor, my overused muscles judder. I rub at my arms to stop them shaking, or maybe it’s that feeling that someone in the crowd is watching me that’s making me shiver. I search through the hundreds of eyes on me. But, instead of Ro, I find the fixed dark gaze of Madam Vor. Of the whole room, she’s the only woman in black.
A gaggle of women are talking across her, but she’s not listening. She’s watching me from behind her black half-mask. She nods her head when I see her. Cold.
She told me to say goodbye to my friends.
The music grows so loud it makes my teeth ache. My brothers speed past with their partners, but the whoosh of fabric, the scrabble of feet and laughter might as well be silence. Again, I’m certain one of the women isn’t wearing a mask, her face painted instead. That one had no hair.
Turning away from Vor’s cold stare, I shove through the crowd.
“’Scuse me,” I say, squeezing through. “’Scuse me.”
If I’d have done what Walker wanted, then I’d have been dead before Swims and so would the Chancellor. Idiot! Idiot! The Roids would be here, dancing with their potential guardians, not pinheaded somewhere Above. It’s all my fault. Like it’s my fault that you’ve gone, Vik. Maybe you wouldn’t have run if—
I was angry because you’d not spoken to me all year. We were friends before, but I didn’t know you any more.
Something red flashes. There it is again.
Ro? She’s heading in the direction of the Chancellor. I push past the girl. It’s not just me that’s seen her. Lice, dozens of them, have started to shoulder through the crowd. Away from the sides of the hall, away from the doors.
Calm down, you say.
Picking up speed, I make my way towards Ro, through slick fabric, sticky flesh; through the smack of hairspray, hooch and perfume. Fighting to find her face, until her strong shoulders and the twists of her hair are in reach.
My hand, hot, rests on her skin as candlelight flickers with whispers. We’re not meant to touch them.
Not how a boy should behave, they whisper.
Not dignified.
I don’t care. Angry or not, whatever her reasons, she’s still my friend. When Ro turns, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.
The whole room is silent now.
I’m not going to say goodbye to her today, not to the boys, not to you.
It’s hard to tell where on her body she might be hiding a weapon to attack the Chancellor. She must have one, right? Behind Ro’s silk mask her wide green eyes are locked on mine.
“Why don’t you go and dance with the Chancellor,” she says with sarcasm. Her voice drops to a whisper. “What are you doing? You’re going to ruin everything!”
One thing I learned from Walker: if you need a distraction, put on a show. If I get Ro to the dance floor, the Lice won’t want to make a scene, right? Maybe they won’t arrest her yet. I can warn her and she can get away.
“May I have this dance?” I try not to stutter.
Boys do NOT ask girls to dance.
The crowd prickles and mutters as I take her hand.
“You can’t do this,” she says, shaking her head.
I let go after we’re separated from the crowd, on the dance floor. The Lice don’t follow us here. I was right: they won’t disrupt the show.
Everything’s too bright. I can’t think. The idea hits and I pull the handkerchief from my pocket, twisting it. I close my eyes and tie the cloth round them. Tight until the bridge of my nose throbs. In the dark, everything seems easier.
“Jude, you can’t fogging see!” Ro whispers closer.
“Trust me, please.” I hold out my hand.
The air is heavy, but nothing moves.
Finally she relaxes. “Fine,” she says, and we begin.
In the darkness, I can pretend. Pretend she’s the girl from my appointments and we’re alone.
Beyond the dark weave of the bl
indfold there’s still colour. The red from her dress. The turn of her face to check on the gathering crowd. A movement of light. It’s distracting so I close my eyes tighter.
When the muttering voices of the women swell, the sound of their gossip is music. I can do this: their voices give me the walls of the dance floor.
Pressing my right palm against Ro’s shoulder blade, her skin is so real. She must know how many rules I’m breaking but she doesn’t flinch. I struggle at first to find her other hand. My fingers walk along the length of her arm, over soft hairs, scuffing the roughness of her elbow. She helps me, twisting her fingers into mine. Her hands are smaller than I remember.
“Ready?” I ask.
“OK.” Her voice is higher than normal, her breath caught in her chest.
The band doesn’t play a note. But I can hear music. Walker used to clap out the rhythm for me.
One step in.
Dum-da-da.
One breath out.
Dum-da-da, gliding, waltzing.
Dum-da-da, dum-da-da, dum-da-da, dum-da-da.
My steps sure, hers slow, hold on tightly, don’t let go.
Dum-da-da, dum-da-da.
The band joins in, longing violins sweep. Cellos skip. Snare drums pat. There are shuffles and skips and we mess up. She laughs, catching herself when she does. Her bones and muscles curl under my hand. She’s so alive. Sticky skin, pumping blood. The mutter of anger as she fumbles with a step. The hesitation before we spin. She’s the girl who saved my life, really saved it.
“You can’t kill her yet,” I whisper as we dance.
“Yes, I can,” Ro says.
Dum-da-da, dum-da-da.
I picture the world beyond the infirmary window. The dusty green fog piling in against High House. As we spin, the doors open on to that world. It’s so easy to imagine there’s nothing left but us. Is this what they were afraid I’d feel when I was a kid in the Surrogacy?
“She said Vik’s alive,” I remind her. “Now she has Walker too.”
Dum-da-da, dum-da-da.
“When we stop, you need to run. They’re coming for you.”
The music sounds like the Gardener’s pleading, the knuckles of the Roids in the dorm, but none of it seems to hurt any more. Everything before now is beneath our feet, so small. The drums are the gunshot. The snare, cold water crashing into my aching face. The violins are the sound of air bursting in my chest as I struggle for breath. The clarinets are Stink crying in the dorm; they are you shouting my name.
When we stop, everything is quiet again.
The crowd has stopped talking. The band has stopped playing. Ro’s body is pressed against mine, her cheek resting against my ear.
I pull my body from hers, tear the blindfold down and blink until the light brings her face to me. Her smile, her trust-me smile. The gleam in her eyes. As she comes into focus, so too does the ring of Lice around us. She leans in, then past me. There’s a little voice, right deep down that says she’s going to kiss me, but she doesn’t. Her mouth is right by my ear, a whisper.
“I don’t need to run,” Ro says as she pulls away. “It’s OK.”
I’m not fast enough. Strange fists grab at me, pull me backwards. Another fist of fingers yanks my head by my newly cropped hair.
Five huge Lice pull Ro away. She tries to break free, but they won’t let go.
“Wait!” I shout, try to twist my arms free, my head too. And I can tell, even though I can’t see her face, that among the officers holding me tight is Aspiner. It’s not just that smell, it’s her hands. Always in places they shouldn’t be.
“You can’t!” I cry.
A stick crashes into my stomach and I buckle over, spluttering on to the stone. I remember how they shot you with electricity, remember how they dragged you away. Right here, on this floor.
“Wait!” I try to choke out. I want to scream that I was the one who broke the rules. I was the one who wanted to dance.
“STOP!” the Chancellor orders.
As she gets closer, it seems the whole world is retreating into the murals. The Foundations’ eyes look away.
My reflection in the folds of her mirrored dress is a collection of colours, splitting into more pieces as she gets closer. The red of Ro, the shock of her hair that disappears into a cloud of black Lice.
“Get off!” Ro shouts as Madam Vor approaches her.
The Chancellor nods at Vor.
Vor waves her hand so that more of her officers scuttle on to the dance floor, locking arms, sealing the crowd away from us. My brothers are fighting to get through to see.
As Vor reaches her daughter, she sighs, loud enough to make the balconies creak.
“Romali Dunn Vor, you are under arrest for crimes against survival and for the murder of Madam Lorraine Dunn, Chief of Life.”
The crowd surges forwards. Noise and hot faces and drunken shouting. They didn’t know the Gardener was dead. Not missing. Not Outside. Murdered.
“No. No, you can’t!” I shout but no one listens. It’s a struggle to keep sight of Ro in the mass ahead as she wrestles with the Lice. “It wasn’t her!”
“Jude, be quiet!” the Chancellor spits. Her grey eyes burn almost white.
I’ll never do what she says again. “You can’t.”
“This is MY House!” the Chancellor snaps. “I can do ANYTHING I want.”
The officers take hold of me again. But my arms tear free and my legs are full of fuel as I leap forwards, scramble across the stone, anger swirling in my stomach. I have to stop this.
There are shouts in the crowd, screams. Boys shouting too. A gunshot into the ceiling that shatters glass. It rains down and guests scatter, a whirlwind of colour. Another shot from behind us. Another from the side.
There are women in the crowd with ugly-looking guns, knives, their eyes smeared with raw bands of white paint. Their cries are wild. I can’t count how many there are. They grab for my brothers. All but the Lice holding back the crowd start to scramble, some to protect the Chancellor, some to try to stop the wild women. Hysterics? There are Hysterics at the ball!
Vor barks orders, forgetting her daughter, making sure the Chancellor is safe. “Get them out!” she yells. “Now! Before—”
The Tower is plunged into darkness, the blackout burns red and the Hysterics warble into the void.
“Now!” Vor yells.
Aspiner is swearing as she and her Lice push me through a door. As we reach the front stairs, every candle blows out as the doors to the Outside fly open. Another dozen wild Hysterics in brightly painted fog masks burst inside. I hold my breath, expecting swells of fog, but nothing comes – there’s a smell, though, like rancid rat guts. Behind us the screams of the women and boys are so loud they shake the mirrors in the ceiling, the glass high above, the sky and the stars beyond.
In the red light of the stairwell, raging against the dark cloud of Lice, my body hits the metal banisters, then the rough concrete walls. I kick out. Aspiner’s gun spins out ahead of her as she falls forwards and lands with an awkward thud on the steps. Some of the officers laugh as she groans.
“Hold him, dammit!” her sharp voice shouts as she limps up the steps. “Bloody Hysterics attack and I have to babysit!”
There are a dozen officers. A surge of bodies slams me against a wall so hard I bite my tongue, swallow down a mouthful of sticky blood.
“The fun we could be having,” she sighs. I push against the weight of her officers but they pin my arms, hold my legs when I try to kick out again. “Protective manoeuvres, girls. We have dangerous resistance here,” she orders. Laughing, her friends begin to twist off my dancing slippers, pulling at my socks.
The concrete, cold under my toes, grazes my heels in the scramble.
“Hold still, will you?” says Aspiner, dusting herself down. She pulls off her fog mask, shakes out her blond hair, blinks her deep brown eyes and steps up so close that I can taste her breath. She’s all muscle and by the Chancellor’s standards they’d probabl
y call her beautiful.
She still looks like a monster to me.
“You remember me?” she asks.
I don’t even want to say her name.
“I heard you tried to turn the Chancellor against me,” she says. “What did I ever do to you?”
There’s an ache of shame in me. Your voice telling me not to be upset that she grabbed me before, to deal with it, get over it.
Why should I be ashamed? I should be angry.
“There are a dozen boys that’d be grateful to dance with me,” she snarls. “You think you’re above it, because of the Chancellor?”
“You never asked,” I say through my teeth.
Aspiner lifts up her gloved hands, runs her fingers down the lapels of my jacket, then undoes my top button. “Maybe you should do the asking?”
“Don’t,” I tell her, the anger boiling over, salted with fear. It’s hard to forget how little she cares about consent.
“Sorry?” she says like she can’t hear me.
I wriggle as she twists the next button. “Don’t,” I say. And the next. “Stop.” It pops open, exposing my shirt beneath.
“Pardon? I thought boys were meant to be polite?”
“Please,” I say.
“Now you’re getting it. Say please again,” Aspiner laughs with a snort.
She turns to her group to bark another order.
There’s a wad of blood in my mouth. It tastes like a hot dollar of chewed meat. I spit it out, sending the mess right into her ear. After wiping it away, Aspiner brings her knee up into my groin.
Explosions go off all over. I fold in two. Bite down.
The others are laughing again as if I’m on the auction stage, telling a joke. Breathe through it. Locking my jaw tight, I push the agony so hard into my teeth they should splinter into dust.
Did I tell you the one about the boy that said no?
“So sensitive, these boys,” Aspiner mumbles. “All the soft bits on the outside. It’ll be so much easier after the auction, when the vote’s passed. So much better. No more worries in those heads.”
I want to ask ‘what vote?’ but the pain rolls up through my chest, twisting as it travels down.