Charlonge stepped closer to them, breathing the sweet floral scent from her mouth. ‘Until you have earned a real one.’
Cal’s eyes widened for a moment then she gave a brittle laugh and walked back down the corridor.
‘Thank you,’ said Retra.
Charlonge sighed. ‘You of all must learn quickly … what Ixion name have you chosen? It is customary for the younglings to do so. A fresh start.’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Retra. The question surprised her. Many would think her Seal name unattractive, but it was still hers. She had no wish to change it. She would not lose her identity in this place.
Charlonge saw her reticence and shrugged. ‘Naif would be my choice for you – naive – but there’s time enough for choosing, I suppose. Come with me and I’ll show you your closet and where you may eat.’
‘Is Charlonge your adopted name?’ asked Retra as she followed the older girl.
‘Yes. I grew up to see things: outside what is visible, I mean. But my people disdained the occult. Somehow “Charlonge” seemed right. It means acceptance, you know.’
Retra didn’t understand what Charlonge meant. The occult was not revered in Grave, but neither was it disdained. In Grave it was more sinful to be joyous than a practitioner of the Dark Arts. ‘Who are your people?’
‘The Lidol from Lidol-Push.’
‘Another world?’ Retra gasped.
This time Charlonge laughed freely. ‘You are truly naive. Your real name should be Naif. Not another world, silly batling, another province. Grave is not the only land near Ixion.’
Retra stared at her, embarrassed and amazed. ‘How many others are there?’
‘Many.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve heard a reaction like yours once before. Are you what they call a Seal?’
Retra nodded.
‘Aaah. Then your learning has been very narrow. Your Superiors keep things from you. You must keep your ignorance a secret.’
‘What is your land like? How does it look? Where do you find it exactly?’ asked Retra.
But Charlonge shook her head. ‘Maybe I will answer you another time. Or maybe not. Now, though, you must dress for the Early-Eve. Your sleeping attire will never do.’
As they reached the foot of the staircase, the music swelled in soulful strums, each note more beautiful and sadder than the last. It plucked at Retra’s senses.
‘Charlonge. The music. Who is playing it? I couldn’t see properly from the balcony.’
Charlonge paused. ‘Aaah, at last, a good sign from you. You are among many to ask me that question. He is like you – a baby bat. But not for long, I think. His name is Markes and he has wings. Brilliant, jewelled wings.’
Markes was here. Cal had lied to her!
Charlonge beckoned Retra across the entry to what must have once been the church’s cloak room. It was now filled with rows of drawers and full-length mirrors.
‘We call this the neglegere. Beyond it is the wash room. Find your closet and choose your Early-Eve clothes. You must eat in the transept, take confession and then leave. Those who linger are noticed,’ she said.
‘C-can I come back?’
‘Of course, when you need to rest, but not before you have been other places. Baby bats love to explore.’ She began to turn away.
‘Charlonge, I am looking for someone …’
Charlonge turned slowly back to face her, a half smile hovering on her lips. ‘A boy, no doubt.’
‘Yes. But not like that. I’m looking for my brother. He and I … we look similar, though he is taller and came here a while ago. I m-missed him, so I came after him.’
Charlonge’s expression became guarded. ‘Do you know how many come to Ixion? How many I see? Why would I remember one boy above another?’ she said in a harsh whisper.
Retra flushed, stung by the girl’s sudden change of tone. ‘Can you tell me where to look? Where would I start?’ said Retra softly.
‘I would not start. Forget your brother.’
Charlonge walked away, leaving Retra standing alone, unsure of what to do.
Her indecision was broken a moment later when four girls pushed past her. Giggling and talking loudly, they sought their lockers and pulled out their new clothes like birds tearing apart an old nest of twigs.
Retra followed them in and sought the drawer numbered on her key. Again she hesitated before opening it.
One of the girls stripped off her sleeping shift and slipped a thin, see-though shawl around her nakedness. ‘Shall I go like this?’
The others snickered and tugged at it, one pulling at the fringe while another uncurled a studded belt from her drawer and slapped the girl’s buttocks. She screamed and giggled more.
Their behaviour disturbed Retra and she buried her hands in her face.
The girls ignored her, dancing and cavorting.
‘What’s your new name?’
Retra looked up. Another girl had entered and opened the drawer next to hers. The new girl flicked a straight, thick lock of hair back from her face and stared at Retra with lively, brown almond eyes.
‘I don’t know,’ said Retra. ‘I don’t want one.’
The girl hesitated, frowning. ‘But everyone has a new name. Everyone.’
‘Retra is my name,’ she stubbornly, waiting for the girl to turn away from her for being a Seal, like Cal had.
‘Retra.’ The girl let it linger over her tongue. ‘It’s a tight name but it’s okay. Maybe you could go for something softer.’
‘Like Naif?’ said Retra.
‘Oh, that’s pretty. Mine is going to be Suki.’
Retra forced herself to respond in kind. ‘That’s pretty too but I think I’ll stay with Retra.’
The girl grinned. ‘Fair enough. Do you want to come with me to find the food? I’m starving. All that dancing naked last night, well … it made me hungry.’ She glanced at the others with a disparaging eyebrow. ‘I’m over it now, though.’
Retra’s lips curled involuntarily. Suki’s direct manner was not offensive like Rollo’s or Cal’s. And there was a lightness about her that wasn’t silly.
‘Yes. I’m hungry too.’ Retra took a velvet dress from her drawer. It seemed modest enough. She glanced around for a changing cubicle but there was none.
Suki had already dropped her nightdress to the floor and had begun to wiggle her small, muscular body into a dark corset with a frilled trim that made it look like a skirt. Retra knew about corsets; her mother wore one. So did all the older Seal women. Her mother’s corset was skin-coloured and serviceable; a brace. It had no frills or bows or lace.
‘Hook me up, will you?’ asked Suki.
Retra fumbled with the long laces, tying them inexpertly. Then she dressed, trying to hide her body from the others. ‘Is it breakfast?’
Suki shrugged. ‘Who knows? I guess it doesn’t really matter when there’s no daytime.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘Wow! You look good in that. You need to let your hair down, though. It’s a great colour. A real rich brown like your eyes.’ She looked Retra up and down. ‘How did they get the fit so right? It’s magical … the clothes and everything. I think I’m going to love this place.’
Retra straightened, catching her reflection in the mirror on the other wall. The velvet coated her body like honey. She felt more naked than the girl in the shawl. She reached into her drawer for another robe.
Suki grabbed her hand, her expression confused. ‘Don’t you want to look good?’
No, thought Retra. But the butterflies in her stomach said something else. Yes.
They entered one end of the cruciform and followed others heading to a curtained area. Suki linked arms with Retra as they passed through into a servery and a cluster of tables.
Her casual friendliness made Retra uneasy but she didn’t draw away. Things would be different here. She must adapt.
Ripers watched them as the pair piled black linguine and a pink sauce onto brass platters and poured grape juice into thick-rimmed goblets.
&nbs
p; ‘They give me the creeps,’ whispered Suki.
Retra nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She couldn’t rid herself of the notion that they could hear her, wherever they were. She shivered, remembering the Riper at the barge, and the voice in the dark. ‘I met a girl on the barge who thought they were … attractive.’
‘Yeah, like bama droppings,’ said Suki.
Retra reached the end of the meal line and glanced back along the row of silver hotplates. Who was serving the food? She hadn’t noticed before but now that she was concentrating, she saw a small, furry, grey creature with a ladle in its prehensile paws.
She nudged Suki. ‘What are they?’
Suki blinked a few times before she answered. ‘Must be an uther. Charlonge told me they’re hard to see. It’s like they’re invisible unless you concentrate on them.’
‘She told you that?’
‘Yeah. I had thousands of questions for her but she only answered a few.’
‘For me too,’ said Retra.
As they found a table and ate, Retra felt a pang of sympathy for Charlonge. How many new runaways had asked the same things? How many times had she given the same answers? And yet she had been patient with Retra, and gentle.
Suki sucked the last of the linguine off her fork, splashing her chin with the sauce. ‘Nice chow,’ she said, wiping her chin with the back of her hand.
Retra tried not to flinch. She wondered what Suki’s home was like. Father would have punished her for such raw manners.
Charlonge entered and circled the tables with the air of a dormitory supervisor. She didn’t stop to speak to Retra though her glance rested on her for a moment longer than necessary.
‘They say she’s been here for ages,’ said Suki, watching Charlonge. ‘That she’s the oldest in Vank and should have gone ages ago.’
‘Gone?’
Suki pulled a face at her. ‘Didn’t you know anything about this place before you came here?’
‘Not really,’ said Retra.
‘When the Ripers decide you’re too old to be here, they move you on somewhere else. They call it withdrawal.’
Retra felt a little surge of panic. Charlonge looked about the same age as Joel. What if Joel had already been withdrawn? ‘Where do they move you to?’
‘Nobody knows really but the Ripers say it’s another island like this. I don’t think it’s an island, though. I bet they just take you out to the cusp of the Spiral and let you go.’
Retra picked up her plate and goblet and looked around for a place to rub them down.
‘For agony’s sakes,’ Suki hissed. ‘Leave them, Retra. The uthers will do it.’
Retra saw the smirks on the faces of those at nearby tables.
‘Get it through your head,’ said Suki. ‘We don’t have to do pig-cuss here. Ixion is just about fun and parties. Now let’s go to confession so we can get out of here.’
Confession? Retra dropped the plate with a clatter, drawing the attention of one of the Ripers. She wanted to run from his penetrating stare but forced herself to copy Suki’s jaunty stride as she got up and left the servery.
The cruciform was crowded now and Retra held her breath, automatically searching for Joel.
What if he is here? Now.
Suki grabbed her hand again and pointed towards the confessional queue. ‘Over there.’
‘Why do we need to confess if we can do what we like?’
Suki shrugged. ‘Weird, huh? But that’s what they told us we have to do. Maybe it’s part of the cleansing. Like the re-birth.’
Retra noticed Cal at the head of the line, next to go in.
Suki saw her too. ‘That one.’ Suki pointed behind her hand at Cal. ‘I hate her already.’
‘H-has she been mean to you?’
Suki laughed. ‘Nah. But she acts like she owns the guy on the guitar. And he is sooo hot. Why should she get dibs on him?’ She pointed.
Retra looked over at the larger apse. The guitarist still sat atop the altar, backlit by glowing jewel lamps. Recognition made her pulse quicken. ‘His name is Markes.’
‘You know him?’ Suki’s eyes lit.
‘I-I met him. That’s all. On the barge.’
‘You came by boat?’
Retra thought of the pain radiating along her leg when she left the Seal compound, and her desperate lunge to catch the barge. ‘Why? How did you come?’
‘You ever hear whirring in the sky?’
Retra nodded. ‘Fly-eyes.’
Suki shook her head. ‘Not always. Sometimes it’s draculins. I trapped one in a cave outside my town, and strapped myself to its back.’
‘What is a draculin?’
Suki rolled her eyes. ‘You must know? Giant bat with wings bigger than … two mountain bulls. They eat their own.’
‘You mean echo-locaters?’
‘Sure, if that’s what you call them.’
‘How did you know where the … draculin you caught would go?’
‘Don’t you know anything? It’s the lore. Draculins fly to Ixion in winter.’
Retra stared at the girl in amazement. ‘But I’ve heard their bite will bleed you to death?’
Suki tossed her head airily. ‘Uh-huh. But I’m here still.’ She pushed Retra forward towards the confessional. ‘Come on, you’re next.’
Retra stepped cautiously into the small, dark cubicle. She was used to confession in Grave. The priest spoke through an electrified grille and arranged degrees of punishment depending on what she had the courage to confess. Usually he ordered denial: denial of food, or conversation, and sometimes sleep. When she’d confessed to listening to the Angel Arias he had prescribed six lashes of the snake whip.
Physical pain is the best form of purification, he’d said.
Her father had delivered the blows but the disappointment on his face had stung more than the lash. She’d cried all day.
As the confessional door snapped shut behind her a sweet, musty damp filled her lungs. Why would the Ripers wish to punish them already? Modesty is a sin, Charlonge had said.
Retra trembled, confused.
The grille slid back suddenly and she gasped.
The Riper from the barge sat there, his head disembodied by the small viewing window, his eyes as cold and seeking as before. ‘What would be your pleasure, baby bat?’
‘What do you ask me that? What should I confess?’ she blurted.
‘Your desires,’ he hissed and tilted the window’s ledge towards her. It unfolded into an elaborately worked drawer of many slots, each one containing a coloured shell, capsule, pod or bead. ‘Pick your pleasure.’
‘Are they medicines?’
His smile felt like a slimy, moist creature clambering over her body. ‘Yes. If you like.’
Retra forced her fingers to the shelf. Fit in. Give them no reason to think you different … She chose a pale rose pod, a less exotic colour than the others.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘You must chew Rapture.’
Retra stood to leave but when she pushed the door it wouldn’t open. She used her full strength on it before turning to the Riper.
‘Chew it now!’ His smile had gone, leaving only the chill stare.
Retra thought of resisting but claustrophobia sent a wave of panic clawing at her belly. He could keep her trapped here. He could …
She placed the pod between her lips. It tasted as bitter as unripe lemon, and it crumbled in her mouth like cold, stale cake. She nibbled a little from the end.
‘All of it,’ he demanded. ‘And hurry, baby bat, others are waiting. Or are you afraid of pleasure?’
‘No. Of c-course not.’ She forced the remainder of the pod into her mouth and chewed, swallowing it in rough lumps.
Suddenly, it seemed hard to breathe in the small cubicle. She longed for space and light, for the cool air of Grave with a tinge of rain. Her body felt overheated, the velvet clinging to her, prickling her skin.
‘Don’t stray from the lit paths, baby bat,’ said the
Riper.
Retra stood and pushed the door. It fell open easily this time and she stumbled out.
‘Wait for me,’ said Suki as she waltzed in.
But Retra had lost place and time. The cruciform of Vank began to shimmer around her, pulsing like an erratic and laboured heartbeat: closer then further. The candlelight streamed, bleeding upward to the arched wooden ribs and downward through the marbled floor.
With great care not to touch them, Retra moved between the rivers of lights towards the jewel-lit altar. The music drew her as if it were the cool spring rain she craved.
Markes already had an audience, a circle of admirers gathered at his feet. Cal sat there, closest to him.
Retra stepped into the centre of the circle of listeners, ignoring their calls for her to sit down.
Markes lifted his head from his guitar at the sight of her. What? He mouthed the question.
In reply, she arched her back and lifted her hands to her hips.
His sharp intake of breath told her that he saw what she was about to do. His eyes fixed on her as she yielded to a building desire. She wanted to touch Markes, feel his hair, touch her fingers to his lips. Her body ached to be close to him.
She took a step forward. Another one. Picking her way through the circle until she stood before him and his guitar. She couldn’t see anyone else now. The rest of the world had become a dark, narrow place with Markes the point of light. ‘You,’ she said. ‘Me.’
But the words seemed to make the darkness swirl and toss her around. Markes shrank in her vision, becoming smaller, less wondrous, less …
Someone shook her: angry and sharp, as if to rattle her to pieces.
‘Stop it!’ shouted Cal. ‘Go away. Leave him alone.’ She forced Retra back from the altar like an overzealous guard.
Markes climbed down, his guitar hanging at his side and his brow wrinkled with concern. ‘Retra, are you sick?’
She couldn’t answer him. Nor could she feel her feet or her knees or the flesh in between. Strange shapes formed, collecting either side of Markes: wings and claws and long, slavering tongues. She put her hands up to bat them away.
‘What is it?’ cried Markes. ‘What can you see?’
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