Glow

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  “Lord,” Mather said, and the applause die down. “We thank You for the blessings You have bestowed on our people. You have shown us the way to create life by sending us Your beautiful daughters from the vessel of our fallen comrades. I wish to honor these generous girls who have shared of their flesh. I’d like to ask the young women to take the stage so that we can thank you properly. Waverly Marshall, Deborah Mombasa, Alia Khadivi, Felicity Wiggam, Samantha Stapleton, Sarah Hodges, and Melissa Dickinson, please join me here.”

  Shocked to hear so many names, at first Waverly couldn’t move. But when Samantha offered her hand, she took it, letting the girl steady her as she shuffled onto the stage and took one of the chairs offered to her personally by Anne Mather. Waverly looked at the woman coldly, but Mather only smiled and even had the gall to stroke her cheek. The audience murmured approvingly at the gesture. Once all the girls were seated, Mather went back to her microphone.

  Waverly looked into the audience and saw so many graying, middle-aged people beaming up at her that she almost wanted to smile back. They’re my captors, she reminded herself. Every last one of them.

  As for the other girls, Felicity, Alia, and Deborah were composed, their faces solemn. Sarah looked as if she were on the verge of angry tears, and Samantha, fists clenched on her knees, scanned the crowd as though choosing whom to kill first. Waverly doubted very much that Mather had gotten their full cooperation.

  “Now,” the Pastor said, one hand raised, “I want these girls to see the beautiful work they’ve done in God’s creation. All the women who have been blessed by these girls’ generosity, please stand and show us who you are.”

  Dozens and dozens of women stood up, many with tears streaming down their cheeks. Waverly looked at Samantha, whose dark eyes burned with fiery rage. Sarah’s eyes were red, and she was biting into her bottom lip savagely, as if trying to hold back tears. Felicity’s large blue eyes were wide with surprise. She glanced briefly at Waverly and away, her expression unreadable.

  “Because of these brave girls,” Mather continued, “we shall survive into the dark night of humanity’s journey across the universe, and our children will see the dawn on New Earth!”

  The room erupted. People stood, clapping, cheering, and waving at the girls. Many wept openly.

  During the wild applause, Waverly shouted into Samantha’s ear, “What did they do to you?”

  “They drugged us!” Samantha yelled over the cacophony. “When we woke up it was done. Then they asked for permission, while we were barely conscious.”

  “We’ll get away!” Waverly said.

  “We’ll have to do it during services,” Samantha replied. “It’s the only time we’re all together in one room!”

  “We’ve got to meet!” said Waverly, conscious that the applause was dying down. There wasn’t much time left.

  “They watch me every second!”

  “I’ll talk to Amanda,” Waverly said. Of all the women who’d been impregnated, only her face was troubled. “She’ll help, I think.”

  Samantha’s hand clamped onto Waverly’s knee. “We can’t trust anyone here!” she said as the last of the applause died out. “Promise me you won’t say anything to her! Waverly!”

  Waverly chewed her lip as she regarded Amanda. She might be their only chance, but Samantha was right. It would be better to find another way, if they could. “Okay,” she said just as Anne Mather began her sermon.

  “I’d like to take you back fifteen years,” Anne Mather said, her voice ringing over the congregation like a clarion call, and they listened, Waverly thought, as though her words meant eternal life. “After years of carelessness and naïve selfishness, we finally got to the task of conceiving our families, only to learn that none of us would ever bear children. Do you remember how that felt?”

  Many of the women in the congregation nodded.

  “We were devastated.” Anne Mather let that word hang in the air before continuing. “God told Abraham once, ‘Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a strange land.’ Yet Abraham’s wife, Sarah, bore no children. So she said to him, ‘Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her.’ And Abraham hearkened to the voice of Sarah.”

  Mather held a hand toward the row of girls on the stage, and the congregation obediently shifted their gaze. Waverly felt mortified. They were looking at her as though she were some kind of saint. “These girls are the fulfillment of God’s promise to the people of the New Horizon!”

  Once again the congregation burst into applause, and Mather soaked it up. She’d spoken with utter conviction, and her flock had responded in kind.

  “These people actually believe they’re doing God’s will,” Samantha said into Waverly’s ear.

  “Maybe not all of them,” Waverly said thoughtfully.

  Waverly looked at Anne Mather. Did that woman really believe what she said? Or was it all an act? Mather gazed at her triumphantly, as though the real purpose of this exercise was to show Waverly just how much power she had.

  She’s convinced them that they’re favored by God, thought Waverly, and that their lives have special purpose. She knows how to make them love her. That’s her power.

  After endless readings, trilling songs from Josiah and the rest of the choir, and another round of applause for Waverly and the girls, services finally ended. Waverly let Samantha pull her to her feet. Once upright, she was shocked by the sudden presence of Anne Mather. “I hope you girls enjoyed that,” she said with a smug grin. “I wanted to show you our gratitude.”

  Amanda joined them. “Wonderful sermon today, Anne,” she said, beaming.

  “Thank you.” Mather looked at Amanda with real fondness.

  “Anne used to be my babysitter, Waverly. Way back when.”

  “Amanda was like a daughter to me,” Mather said. The love between the two of them was palpable. Clearly Mather cared very much what Amanda thought of her.

  “Waverly,” Amanda said, hooking arms with Mather, “did you know Anne started as a schoolteacher? She taught Josiah and me how to read.”

  “I wasn’t very good at it,” Mather said with a shake of her head.

  “Really?” Amanda sounded surprised. “I think it’s something I would have liked to try someday. If there had been children here, that is.”

  “Now there are,” Waverly said. She was getting an idea for a way she and Samantha could communicate. “Amanda, why don’t you put together a school for us girls? The older ones, anyway?”

  Mather’s gray eyes darted at Waverly, and the girl smiled dangerously at her.

  “That’s a good idea!” Amanda cried.

  “You’d be a great teacher,” Waverly told her.

  “I don’t know if the girls are ready,” Mather objected, and Waverly thought she saw sweat at the woman’s temple.

  “I’m so bored all day,” Waverly said, adding, “it would be nice to see my friends, too.”

  “Please let me do it, Anne!” Amanda cried. “I can’t paint round the clock! And it would be good for the girls.”

  Waverly kept her expression innocent, but the seething way Mather looked at her showed she wasn’t fooled. Waverly didn’t care. Obviously Mather wanted Amanda to think of her as a saintly leader, not a scheming liar. This gave Waverly power over her.

  “I’ll think about it,” Mather said carefully.

  “What is there to think about?” Amanda asked, confused. “They’re young girls. They need to learn.”

  “There are other considerations.”

  Josiah called Amanda over to join a conversation with the choir, and she stepped away, leaving Mather and Waverly alone.

  “These people certainly love you,” Waverly said, her voice menacing and low. “Especially Amanda.”

  “We’re all a family,” Mather returned, her cheeks pink.

  “Would they still love you,” Waverly asked, “if they knew all the things you’ve done?�
��

  Mather looked at her in surprise.

  Waverly turned and limped off the stage.

  SCHOOL

  It happened strangely. Amanda woke Waverly early one morning and gave her a tan smock, brown kneesocks, and a knit beret. The outfit reminded Waverly of pictures she’d seen of Girl Scouts from the twentieth century. “I couldn’t talk them out of uniforms,” Amanda said with an apologetic shrug.

  Waverly didn’t care how stupid she looked. She just wanted to see her friends.

  Amanda wore a tan smock and brown stockings, too, but instead of the ridiculous beret, she had a black neckerchief. After their breakfast of brown rice, bananas, and honey, she led Waverly to the living room and sat down facing the girl, her hands on her already swelling belly.

  “I thought we were leaving,” Waverly said.

  “Oh, we are,” she said, smiling.

  A knock sounded at the door, two harsh raps.

  “They’re here,” Amanda said, handing Waverly her cane.

  There were guards outside the door and behind them a gathering of the oldest girls from the Empyrean, all dressed in smocks and berets. Felicity’s blue eyes were vacant. Samantha had taken off her beret and was crushing it in her fist. Sarah stared at Waverly, her eyes stony in her freckled face.

  “Are we ready for school?” the guard with the scar asked Waverly, sneering.

  She ignored him and hobbled past the other girls to stand next to Samantha and Sarah.

  “Hi.” Samantha leaned toward Waverly, about to speak, when a shout from the guard stopped her.

  “There will be no breaking away. There will be no wandering off. There will be no talking.” The guard jerked a finger at his ear. “I have the hearing of a killer whale. You won’t be able to get anything past me.”

  Waverly looked away, trying to seem unimpressed.

  “Hut two three four!” he shouted, as though he were leading the girls in a splendid game. The girls streamed behind him in a double line. Waverly had hoped both guards would stay up front so that she could talk to Sarah and Samantha, but one of them took up the rear. She could feel his eyes on her as she limped along, leaning on her cane.

  They trooped through the corridors, coiling up the belly of the ship until they reached a room in the administrative section. There were no portholes, it was stuffy, and the lights were dim. Arranged in rows were small desks and chairs identical to the school desks on the Empyrean, except that these were pristine—no graffiti, no dents, no signs of use at all.

  The guard handed a piece of paper to Amanda, whose shoulders caved when she saw it. She cast an angry glare at the guard but seemed resigned as she announced, “Girls, we’ve created a seating chart to help me remember your names!” She directed each girl to her assigned chair, and by the time everyone was seated, Waverly was in the back corner, Samantha in the front row on the opposite side of the room, and Sarah in the middle of the group. They couldn’t turn to face one another and were too far apart to whisper.

  Amanda handed out books of poetry and had the girls read verse by a poet from deep in North America’s past called Walt Whitman, and then they discussed it. Most of the girls were silent, off in their own worlds, but a few seemed heartened to be in a classroom again and raised their hands to join the discussion. Waverly sat back and watched the guards, looking for some angle she could use.

  The men paced the room, holding their guns to their chests. Waverly noticed Amanda glaring at them more than once, and she even stopped the lesson long enough to ask the guard to stop distracting her students. But he only smiled and went on pacing. Once Samantha turned around in her seat to look at Waverly, but the guard flicked her scalp with a finger, and she turned back around, her spine stiff and straight.

  “Girls,” Amanda said to the class. Her voice shook with nervousness. “Now that you’ve read a sample of Whitman, why don’t you spend twenty minutes working on a poem of your own? I’ll have you read what you write aloud, so do your best work!”

  The only sound in the room was the scratching of pens on paper, but soon heads started popping up as girls finished their poems. Waverly watched the guards, trying to think of a way to get a message to Samantha undetected. But the room was small, and they were vigilant. Waverly imagined hitting the one with the scar over the head and running away with the rest of the girls to commandeer a shuttle. Her hand closed over the wooden leg of her chair, and she imagined it was a club. She gripped it so tightly, a film of sweat formed between her skin and the wood.

  “All right,” Amanda said. “It looks as though most of you are finished. Would anyone like to share what they’ve written?”

  A hand darted up and waved in the air. It was Samantha. Waverly straightened in her seat.

  Samantha stood, hunched over her poem, head bent, her thick brown bangs hanging in her face. Her gaze shifted onto Waverly, she raised her eyebrows, and said, “Don’t everyone copy me.” Her voice seemed to catch. “I worked hard on this. Every other word felt like torture.”

  Amanda laughed. “You sound like a true poet.”

  Samantha stared at Waverly, then dropped her eyes to the pen on Waverly’s desk.

  What had she said? Don’t copy me? Did she want Waverly to write down what she read?

  Waverly picked up her pen. Barely perceptibly, Samantha nodded. The guard with the scar stood behind Samantha, eyeing her suspiciously.

  Waverly bent over her desk as she copied down Samantha’s words. The girl paused between each line of her poem, lifting her eyes to make sure Waverly was keeping up.

  I’ve often taken love like a knife,

  Will I acquire love more through blood or will

  We spill love?

  Like a trap for everyone, love hides inside,

  Its services thin.

  Felicity only told in your stingy message.

  Kept where mercies are paltry.

  They wait, question cryptic marks.

  No response.

  No tomorrow.

  Samantha went back to her seat, her head tilted over her desk.

  “Well,” Amanda said, uncertain what to say. “That was an intense poem, Samantha! It reminds me of the early-twentieth-century poets. Would someone else like to read?”

  No one else volunteered, so Amanda called on Melissa Dickinson, who stood to read in a monotone about stars and time.

  Waverly watched the guards, who had begun pacing again. The one with the scar was coming toward her. She wanted to cover her notepad where she’d copied Samantha’s poem, but that would look suspicious and she’d be found out. Her heart knocked like a broken piston as she felt the guard creep behind her. Did he stop to look at her notebook over her shoulder? She didn’t know. Eventually he moved away. Waverly found she’d been holding her breath, and her lungs screamed for air, but she forced herself to breathe calmly until she could be sure the guard had lost interest in her.

  When the guard circled to the front of the room, his eyes were on Samantha, who bent over her notebook. She erased words, rewrote them, crossed some out. For a moment he seemed about to take the poem away from her, but when he saw Amanda watching him with narrowed eyes, he backed away and stood in the corner of the room.

  At the end of the day, the guards marched all the girls through the corridors, back the way they’d come, so that Amanda and Waverly were the first to be dropped off.

  “That went well, don’t you think?” Amanda asked Waverly, her voice purposefully cheerful. “I don’t like having those goons there, but I couldn’t talk Anne out of it. I think you scared her when you went down to the cargo hold, and she says she doesn’t want any of you getting hurt.”

  “I suppose,” Waverly said, but she made it clear in her tone that she didn’t believe this explanation. She could see that Amanda didn’t believe it herself.

  Waverly pretended to yawn. “Sitting up all day tired me out. I’m going to take a nap if that’s okay.”

  “Be sure to read your history lesson before tomorrow!” Am
anda chided.

  Waverly shut herself in her room and turned on her desk lamp. She stared at Samantha’s poem, trying to tease out the message, but it seemed just a jumbled mess of words. She’d worked herself to the point of frustration and was about to give up for a while when she remembered that Samantha had said something odd before she’d read the poem. What was it? Something about torture.

  Every word was torture?

  No.

  Every other word was torture. Samantha must have laced a message through the poem.

  Waverly crossed words out, playing with different possibilities, until the embedded message came through:

  I’ve taken a knife. Will acquire more. Blood will spill. Trap everyone inside services. Felicity told your message. Where are they? Response tomorrow.

  Waverly worked for hours on her response for Samantha, writing and rewriting another poem in the hopes that there would be a similar assignment in class tomorrow. She was exhausted when morning came, and Amanda didn’t want her to go to school, but Waverly insisted. When the guards came by with the girls, she was ready in her strange uniform, her message for Samantha tucked into her notebook under her arm.

  When Amanda gave them time to write a short poem based on “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats, Waverly waited until a couple of girls had read their work before she raised her hand to volunteer. She didn’t want to seem too eager.

  “Why don’t you sit at your desk and read, Waverly?” Amanda said.

  “Every other line was like chipping away at my teeth.” Waverly forced a giggle.

  “I’m glad to know you’re taking the assignment so seriously!” Amanda said, beaming.