Dearly, Beloved

by Lia Habel

  This, along with the fact that I’d just had a gun pointed at my face, muted my usual temper. As he turned the lights on, I folded my hands together behind my back, ready to listen. I had no idea what was coming, but I’d listen.

  “What did the thief call you?” my father inquired. “Miss Roe began to tell us—what was it?”

  Recollection of the term filled me with an oozing, disgusting sense of shame. “A … necroslut.” I’d never heard the term before, but I could guess what was being implied.

  Dad gripped his hands tightly about the handle of his cane. “What else?”

  “We got out. We told them we didn’t want any trouble.” I hated even thinking about it. “One of them told me I should be ashamed for siding with the dead. That’s why they were taking our carriage. They were using something to change their voices, it was weird. Then they drove away.”

  Papa didn’t say anything. I didn’t like how cold he was—far better he should treat me as he had before. “We weren’t doing anything,” I stressed. “We were just sitting there.”

  He held up a hand to shush me. “I’m not blaming you—and when the police find that man, I will punch his teeth back into his throat for what he said. But Bram shouldn’t have driven you out alone at night. I trust him with my life, I admire him, but he is still courting my undebuted, underage daughter. Heavens, compared to other parents, I let you both get away with murder—but the line must be drawn somewhere.”

  “It’s not his fault. You upset me.” My voice threatened to tighten, to rise, and I fought to keep my tone somewhat reasonable. “We weren’t going out to neck somewhere. He knew I needed room to breathe. To think. I’ve been cooped up—”

  “I realize that. And I realize etiquette is not the real issue here.” Papa moved past me, and I stepped aside to make room for him and his cane. He sat on the edge of his bed. “The real issue is your safety. Which is why I intend to send you to Belize. To your relatives.”

  This statement sent my train of thought careening off the rails. If he’d just said he planned to sequester me in a diving bell until I came of age at twenty-one, it would have made more sense. “What?”

  All at once my father’s control disappeared. He slumped, his voice weakening. “It’s the only way.”

  I stepped forward, my cheeks heating. It was Cyprian’s all over again. He’d rushed me off to boarding school, never giving me a choice, never explaining why—because he’d unintentionally infected my mother, turning her into a host. “No. I don’t even know anything about them. I’ve never met them in my life.”

  “Nora—”

  “Because they disowned you for marrying Mama!” That was the only bit of ammo I had, literally the only thing I knew about my father’s family, so I tried to deliver it with all the frustration and anger currently in me. “I won’t go. And that’s the thing. I know how upset you are, how serious all of this is, so I’ve tried to be a dutiful daughter of late—but I can’t hide forever! And you need to stop avoiding me, keeping things from me!”

  “ ‘Keeping things’?” Papa’s eyes glinted, and he dug into his waistcoat, drawing out his plain black cell phone. “I know you’ve been trying to call me. Do you know why your calls keep getting bounced?” He raised the volume, and I blinked. The thing was ringing. Had it been ringing all this time?

  Papa punched a series of buttons angrily with his thumb, and hurled the phone to the bed. It was his voice mailbox.

  “I know you created this plague. I know where you live, Dearly. It’s easy enough to find things on the Aethernet.”

  “You should burn in hell. You should be forced to watch every part of your body go through a meat grinder while you look at a photograph of my son. My son didn’t deserve to die, you rotting son of a bitch!”

  There were dozens of such messages, each one vile. At the end I barely found it in me to say, “Where did they get all of these ideas?”

  “Pundits? Misinformation on the news? Who knows. Someone found my number, published it on the Aethernet.” Papa collected his phone. “Do you see why I worry?”

  “I’m sorry.” Things made more sense now. Still, I said, “But Papa—if anything, this means you should leave.”

  “I can’t. I can’t leave my work. My teams.”

  “Exactly. If we all go together, that’s one thing, but I can’t leave everyone. You. If things get bad again, I have to help. Don’t you see? I don’t want to be a soldier, but I still want to do something with my life. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “And you’re far from a woman.” My father shook his head. “I just want you to see that there’s a difference between being able to defend yourself and actually inviting tragedy into your life by acting recklessly. The carriage thieves were obviously opportunists, but people have used you to get to me before. I won’t let that happen again.”

  “Papa …” I pushed my hair back in aggravation. “Papa, it’s not like I’m normal, okay? I live in a house with a bunch of walking dead people. I’m wrapped up in the whole thing. You can’t expect me to live as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened to me. When I was a child you always let me be myself, let me do my own thing.”

  “It was safe to do so then. And I thought you were no longer a child.” My father flexed his hands angrily around his cane. “The world has changed forever, Nora—changed, and not changed at all. Even if the dead weren’t walking the streets, do you think I’d let you run about like some parentless foundling? At your age?”

  “Are you even listening to yourself? I’m not going to say the H-word, but I’m going to imply it by staring at you reeeeally hard right now.”

  “I am being hypocritical, it’s true. I know I’m the last person who should lecture anyone about being impulsive. But you are my daughter.” He slowly relaxed his hands. “And you’re the only real family I have left.”

  Had he given up on finding Aunt Gene alive, then? Sobering, I walked over and sat beside him. He pulled me to his side and I leaned against him and shut my eyes, relief flooding into me at this simple display of affection. Sometimes my feelings about my father confused me. When I’d thought him truly dead, I wanted him back more than anything. Now I needed him, and I didn’t need him. I wanted his attention, and didn’t want it.

  “I’m sorry if I frightened you earlier, or hurt you.” He set his cane aside. “I’m so exhausted I’m almost unfeeling now.”

  “Frightened” wasn’t the right word for it, but I decided not to make a scene. In the moment, he’d been hotheaded and unthinking; now he seemed in control. “What Elpinoy said—do you really think you’re to blame for the plague?”

  Papa stroked my hair. “It’s a hard thought to shake, yes.”

  “But it isn’t your fault.” I looked at him. “If you’d killed the zombies that showed up all those years ago, instead of helping them, studying them … then I wouldn’t have this little bit of time with you. I wouldn’t have Bram—I never would have met him.”

  “I know. It’s just … scary. Scary, the idea that this illness might continue. Might change, and change, until it’s conquered the globe.”

  “Papa, I’m scared, too. But I can’t live like this either. Everything’s different.”

  Papa was quiet for a moment. “I know it’s difficult.”

  “I was happy to help organize the house when we arrived here, get everyone settled, but I don’t want that to be the only thing I do. And studying? Seriously? I should be helping you. Or doing something to help the zombies in the Morgue, or—”

  “No. I forbid you to visit that place. It’s dangerous. You should see some of the injuries that come from there.” He sighed. “Nora, I just don’t want you to become so obsessed with the present that you can’t see the future. That is my great sin. It shouldn’t be yours.”

  Looking down at the carpet, I took a breath. Because I knew what he meant. A future without most of the people I currently loved.

  “Our situation is very tenuous. As you’ve now heard
.” He removed his glasses. “We need to try to fit back into society. We have the right to exist, to carry on with our lives, but we are also blessed with the wisdom to know when to lay low. That doesn’t mean I don’t trust you. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect your need to fight. I just want you to think more than I do.” He pointed at the sagging skin of his face, and then knocked his metal leg. “Look at what my mistakes have cost me.”

  Instead of saying anything, I nodded. I could see the truth behind half his arguments, and with the other half I wasn’t getting anywhere.

  “Now, I’m going to take your advice and get some rest. Then I’ll head back to the lab and get to work.”

  “Without Dr. Elpinoy?”

  “Oh …” Dad let off an annoyed tongue-pop, and rose to see me to the door. “By the way,” he said as I entered the hall, “you’re grounded for a week.”

  I spun around and glared at him. “What?”

  He lifted his cane, touching the end of it to my chin. I batted it away. “You won’t move elsewhere, so you’re grounded. I don’t even want you out in the EF. I want you to remain here in the house where you’re safe, until some sort of order is restored in the streets. Then we’ll talk about how you can help.”

  “But we don’t have that long. What about those masked freaks? We should go after them!”

  “You’re a smart and independent young lady, Nora, and I would have it no other way. But it is not your duty to save the world. And if you won’t opt to remain safe, I’m not above forcing you to remain safe.”

  That did it. “I think you lost your right to ground me when you faked your own death. Just saying.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you want to make it two weeks?”

  I could have broken him down. I could have reminded him how his secrecy about the undead had taken my mother from me and almost gotten me killed. I could have reminded him how he’d abandoned me instead of telling me the truth, and how this translated into his having—in theory—about zero authority over me.

  But I also knew he already blamed himself for all of those things. I couldn’t be that cruel. I’d already taken him to task; I didn’t need to do it again.

  “Besides, I have a project you can work on.” He stepped back, so I could better see into his room. Rows of brown cardboard boxes were arranged along the far wall. “Do you know what’s contained in those boxes?”

  “Information about Aunt Gene.” He’d been making various inquiries for months. As a show of goodwill I added, “Sir.”

  “Exactly. Go through them again and see if I’ve missed something. That top one contains information for my lawyer. If we ever find out what happened to her, and it turns out the Allisters lied … I want to string them high.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust Lord Allister.”

  I didn’t understand this, but I knew I didn’t trust his son. According to him, my aunt had been with his parents when the Siege struck. “That makes two of us.”

  “Good. You can start in the morning. You can actually do some homework, too. You will complete your education. Now, go get someone to stitch up your cheek. Good night, NoNo.”

  Instead of doing so, I curtsied and marched to my bedroom. Once there I proceeded to terrify a few cats by digging out my collapsible scythe, the morbid entrenchment tool Samedi had built, from under the bed to practice with. I meant to tire myself out so I could sleep. I wasn’t worried about the cut on my cheek; it wasn’t that bad. I had bigger things to worry about. The city, my father, Bram …

  A second later the tingle of apprehension these ideas caused blew up, fanning out into an anger so profound it was almost comforting. It wasn’t the last straw—it was the last gallon of kerosene. I started swinging the double-ended scythe at nothing in particular, in time with my furious thoughts. Then, panting, I hurled my weapon against the wall and sat down. I drew my knees up under my skirt and wrapped my arms about them, before hiding my face in the cool folds of fabric. Even if I was immune to the new strain, that didn’t mean I was special. All things considered, I was just as vulnerable as the next person. The same as anyone else. No better. No safer.

  And grounded. Pfft. I thought I’d left things like that behind with knee-length skirts and pigtails.

  I fervently wished I were back in the jungle, with Bram at my side—a messed-up version of Tarzan and Jane. Innocent, in a way. Primed for adventure. Free.

  My version of safe.

  “Once upon a time, there was a pretty little girl named Calendula,” I whispered as I drilled my fingernails into my own flesh.

  It didn’t hurt.

  I’d been picking for hours at the tips of my shoulders and finally managed to scrape out enough skin to create little divots. Slowly, carefully, I began to worm my index fingers inside—deeper, deeper. I looked to my right and watched my nail cutting the flesh, my cuticle disappearing, the wormlike wiggling of my fingertip beneath my skin. Beside me in the living room loft, Dog laid his head on my pile of water-stained fairy-tale books and princess novels, sadly stroking his new wrist stump.

  Below us, people were shouting.

  “Fourteen!” Claudia yelled. “Fourteen zombies killed or arrested today! Arrested … pah. We all know the living will execute them in the end. The only reason they’re still alive is because of those zombies on the docks!”

  “Who were working with the living to aid us.” Mártira’s voice was full of pain. “There was no reason for what happened today. None.”

  “None? They attacked because they were in danger. They used the weapons they had. They did what zombies do!”

  “You say that as if it’s a good thing, Claudia. The dead can make the choice not to attack the living, if they’re still capable of making choices. We can help them make that choice.”

  “Hagens is still out there,” someone else said; a safecracker named Joe. “Other people are still out there. And all of this was caused by Smoke? That slimy pyromaniac? What if they do trace him back to us, come lookin’ for more info about him? Or think the rest of us have that new strain, too? Wipe us out?”

  “Exactly!” Claudia said.

  “All because you’ll take in any stray zombie what comes.” Joe sounded exasperated. “Like they’re hungry kittens.”

  In the loft, Dog moved closer to me. I wasn’t sure if it was in response to the mention of Hagens or Smoke—we both feared the former, but only Dog disliked the latter. About a month ago Smoke, mostly silent and horribly rotted, had followed Mártira back to the den after one of her first free clinic attempts in the Morgue, along with a handful of other homeless zombies. Hagens found us soon after. I’d thought him frightening only in appearance until hearing about how he lashed out during the riot, and still found it difficult to conceive of the poor man as evil. True, now we knew that a different sort of sickness had made him, but he never seemed different. He’d been quiet. Maybe a little secretive. And there was nothing wrong with that.

  We all had our secrets.

  Sliding my fingers back out—my flesh suckled at them—and patting Dog’s side, I reached for the packet of seeds sitting on my bedroll. A whole packet—a gift from Abuelo, who found it in the trash. Amazing what people threw away.

  “Forget Smoke,” Claudia said. “Mártira, because of you, the core of our gang has survived. You talked about us being an all-zombie gang before, a force to be reckoned with.” Her voice cut through the air. “We can’t continue to take in orphans and raise money to throw away on water. If we’re going to make a difference, we have to step it up. They’re attacking our people! We should strike back, like we used to!”

  “They don’t mean you,” I assured Dog as I tore open the packet with my teeth, then shook out a few of the precious little seeds. Carefully, I placed four seeds each in the shallow furrows I’d created in my shoulders.

  “We’re not talking about this now,” Mártira said. “Not until everyone has been found and settled. And to think, discussing things like this where Laura and the other children can hear
…”

  “Those children used to steal for you. Laura is fifteen,” Claudia argued. “I was robbing houses at fifteen. You always shield her from everything!”

  With that, I heard steps on the ladder that led to the loft. Claudia was coming, and that meant I had to work quickly. Willing myself into the shadows, I shoved the seed packet beneath my pillow and caressed my shoulders, urging my skin to resume clinging to my flesh. I’d water the holes later.

  “Laura? Are you up here?” She sounded cross. And closer.

  Drawing the shoulders of my gown up and pushing my hair forward, I answered, “Yes?”

  My sister climbed into the loft and wrenched aside the black netting I’d draped between her side and mine. Death had made Claudia hideous, her face strangely softened and filled with decaying blood. She looked like an old woman rather than the eighteen-year-old she was. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse. Dog edged away from her.

  “Dressing,” I told her as my hands went instinctively, protectively across my chest. Claudia always destroyed whatever I grew, and so now I kept my plants close to me, let them root themselves in my very body. Myrtle at my wrists, ivy at my hips, roses at my waist, and soon, calendula on my shoulders.

  I was no longer alive, but I might help something else to live.

  Claudia’s eyes moved over my body, her upper lip curling. They then darted up to the little wooden shelf above my bedroll where I kept my few belongings. Inwardly I cringed, knowing what was to come.

  I’d forgotten to hide them.

  She reached over me, grabbing two chipped terra-cotta pots from my shelf. Each held a handful of sandy earth swept from the street and a struggling seedling. Before I could plead for their lives, down they went. One smashed apart on the floor below, the other hit someone. “Hey!”

  “I’ve told you ten thousand times—if you’re going to sell flowers, you steal them from toffs’ gardens. You don’t grow them! You’re a flower girl, not a farmer!”

  Dog hid behind me, and I sent back a hand to comfort him. “But stealing is wrong, Claudia.”