Pure

by Julianna Baggott

  Partridge fixes his attention on the clippings of his father—a few shots of him at the mike, sometimes dipping forward with one hand pressed to his tie, a false humility that Partridge despises. His father is in the background of lots of other news-story photos, hanging at the edges. Partridge says, “I don’t even recognize him, really. I mean, what was he really like?”

  “Your father?” Bradwell says. “A man of short sentences, positive catchphrases, and lots of promises. A master of vague, among other things.”

  Partridge picks up one of the dusty clippings. He stares at his father’s pale face, his reedy lips, his eyes always looking away from the camera. “He’s a liar. He knows more than he’s willing to say.”

  “I bet he knew everything,” Bradwell says.

  “What’s everything?

  “All the way back to World War Two.”

  “World War Two?”

  “My parents studied it,” Bradwell says. “Otten Bradwell and Silva Bernt. They were tagged at a young age like your dad was, young recruits for the Best and the Brightest. They were plucked out of their respective high schools a couple of states away from each other on random afternoons their senior year and taken out to lunch at Red Lobsters.”

  “Red Lobsters?”

  “A restaurant chain, probably part of the protocol. Someone had done that level of research and had found the perfect restaurant to lure young recruits from modest backgrounds. Your dad probably was taken to a Red Lobster too when he was in high school.”

  Partridge can’t imagine his father ever having been Partridge’s age now. Impossible. He was always old. He was born old.

  “But unlike your father, my parents turned it down. They used to joke that the Red Lobster didn’t work on either of them. They were Red-Lobster-immune.”

  Partridge doesn’t like the way Bradwell’s take makes his father sound weak. He doesn’t like the sound of his father’s name coming from Bradwell’s mouth. “Where did you find all of this stuff?” Partridge asks.

  “My parents knew what was coming. They had a hidden safe room with double-enforced steel-lined walls. After my aunt and uncle died, I went back to the house, all burned up. Without thinking too hard, I knew the four-digit combination—eight-one-oh-five, the number of the house they’d first lived in, where I was born, in fact, in Philly. It wasn’t easy, but I hauled the footlocker with me and finally to this place.”

  “My mother’s stuff might be nothing,” Partridge says. “But the first time I held her things in my hands, they felt important—proof, like they could lead me to her. Maybe it’s stupid.”

  Bradwell touches the small pristine metal music box, brushes one finger over the birthday card, lightly, its design of balloons on the cover, as if the things are holy. Partridge would never tell him that’s what it looks like, though. He knows that Bradwell would hate the idea that anyone would treat anything from the Dome reverently.

  “I haven’t seen anything like this since the Detonations, not charred or singed, not partially obliterated or ashen. They had to have been inside the Dome before the Detonations.” He touches the gold pendant, the swan with its blue eye, and the smooth edges of the birthday card. “Jesus!” he says, hit by a sudden flare of anger. “What’s it like to walk around perfect, huh, Partridge? No scars, no burns, no birds. To be a clean slate?”

  The question makes Partridge angry. “Just because I live in a Dome doesn’t mean I’ve never suffered. I mean, it’s not like your suffering. What could compare to this, huh? Do you want an award for it? A medal that says First Place Suffering? You win, Bradwell. Okay? You win.”

  “This isn’t about us.”

  “Then stop making it about us.”

  “We have to clear our heads of the most obvious and blinding assumptions. We don’t want to see what’s being represented. We want to see what’s really here—and the shadows that live behind it. The Shadow History.”

  “Right,” Partridge says, even though he’s still angry and doesn’t know how he could possibly clear his head.

  “How old were you when the Detonations hit?”

  “Eight and a half.”

  “This is for your ninth birthday.”

  “I know. My father never gave it to me.”

  “She knew she wasn’t going to be with you for it, either dead…”

  “Or still out here.”

  “Why did she only do one birthday? Why not all of them?”

  “Maybe it’s proof she’s alive. She thought she’d be reunited with me for my tenth.”

  “Or maybe that’s the only one your father kept.” Bradwell went on, “If your mother’s things were in the Dome before the Detonations, does that mean you packed up before the Detonations and moved in?”

  “We were allowed a few personal items—not because we knew the Detonations were coming, just in case of something, anything, really.”

  “How soon before the Detonations?”

  “We were taking a tour when the Detonations hit. We walked around what would be our little apartment. I put my small box of things—stupid stuff, a video game, a stuffed animal I won from a machine and thought was lucky—under the bunk beds.”

  “Well, when you all brought in your small box of things, your mother must have known then that there was a chance she wasn’t going to be with you.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Willux could have stolen some things before he left his wife behind. On purpose. If so, that means the objects are valuable. Did he plant this stuff because he knew it was important, just not why? Did he want you to find it, hoping it would stir something in you?” Bradwell winds the music box and opens it. “What about this tune?”

  “What about it?”

  “Does it stir something?”

  “Like I said, it’s a kid song that I think she made up. It’s nothing.”

  Bradwell lifts the necklace by its gold-link chain and watches the swan twist, its wings spread wide.

  Partridge can feel Bradwell’s energy. “Do you have any ideas?” Partridge asks. “A plan?”

  Aboveground it’s gotten windy, and there’s the rattle of debris being kicked around. Bradwell glances overhead, then at the necklace wound around his fingers. “You know what would help?” Bradwell says. “Info about your mother.”

  “I doubt I can answer any questions about her. I barely knew her.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “She was smart and pretty. She met my father kind of young.” Partridge picks up the birthday card and fiddles with the raised design on the front of it, multicolored balloons.

  “Were they happily married?”

  “That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”

  “Everything’s relevant,” Bradwell says.

  “I think they were happy at one point. But I don’t remember them laughing together or kissing each other. The air in the house was always, I don’t know, stiff. They were formal with each other. Weirdly well mannered. In the end, I think she hated him.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  He hesitates. “I don’t know. Parents sometimes hate each other, right?”

  “What did your mother do?”

  “She was a linguist,” he says. “She spoke tons of languages. My father used to say that she was also fluent in Gestures. No matter what language she was speaking, she was always waving her hands around.” He waves his hands in the air. “Supposedly she took me with her to Asia for a year when I was little. Some kind of work she had there, an opportunity. She wanted to get back into her career. I was just a baby, a one-year-old or so.”

  “That’s strange. Isn’t it? Leaving your husband and one of your other kids and taking the baby to Asia to work for a year?”

  “My older brother was in kindergarten already.”

  “Still…”

  “I guess it’s strange.” Partridge sits in one of the armchairs. He shoves himself back in his seat. Is Bradwell goading him? “I don’t know what’s strange and what’s nor
mal, actually.”

  “Where’s your brother now?”

  “He’s dead.” Partridge says it quickly, as if this will lighten the ache in his chest.

  Bradwell pauses a moment. “I’m sorry about that.” It feels like an apology for a lot of things, actually, like thinking Partridge’s life was a cakewalk.

  Partridge doesn’t lord it over Bradwell, though, and he knows he could. He says, “It’s okay.”

  “How did he die?”

  Partridge looks around without moving his head. His eyes rove—the metal walls, the hooks overhead strung with animals, the footlocker. “He killed himself.”

  “In the Dome?” He’s incredulous. “How could anyone lucky enough to live in the Dome kill themselves?”

  “It’s not really that unusual. There isn’t a strong stigma attached to it like there used to be. With very little death by sickness and the theory of limited resources, it’s still awful, but it’s not seen as selfish. In some cases, it’s almost generous.”

  “The theory of limited resources?” Bradwell says. “They planned the apocalypse because they wanted the earth to survive, regenerate itself, so once they’ve used up their limited resources, they’ll be ready to use the world’s again. It’s a sweet plan.”

  “Is that what you really think?” Partridge asks.

  “It’s what I know.”

  “All I know is that my brother was a good guy, and people admired him. He was of true value, and he was better than I am, really. A better person. There are worse things than killing yourself. That’s all I was saying.”

  “There are worse things like what?”

  “Why all these questions? Do we have a plan?”

  Bradwell pulls out a small knife from his belt. He puts the swan pendant down on the footlocker and kneels in front of it.

  “What are you doing?” Partridge asks.

  Bradwell raises the butt of the knife and, in one quick motion, slams it down on the pendant. The belly of the swan cracks in half.

  Before he can think about it, Partridge lunges and shoves Bradwell to the ground. He pins down Bradwell’s hand with the knife, grabs his other wrist too, and uses it to apply pressure to Bradwell’s neck. “What did you do?” he shouts. “That was my mother’s! Do you know what that’s worth to me?”

  Bradwell tightens his neck muscles and strains to speak. “I don’t give a shit what you value.”

  Partridge shoves him and then lets him go. Bradwell sits up and rubs his neck. Partridge picks up the two small pieces of the swan. The neck, the jeweled eye, and the hole to thread the pendant onto a necklace are still intact. Only the belly is halved, showing a hollow center. Partridge looks at the two halves closely.

  “It’s not just a pendant, is it?” Bradwell says, sitting with his back against the metal wall. “It has a hollow center. Am I right?”

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “I had to. Is there something inside?”

  Partridge lifts the pendant and sees foreign markings he can’t read. “I don’t know,” Partridge says. “An inscription. I can’t make it out. It’s in a different language.”

  Bradwell holds out his hand. “Can I look?”

  Grudgingly, Partridge places the two pieces in Bradwell’s palm. Bradwell eyes them closely, holding them up to the bare bulb in the middle of the room.

  “Do you know what it says?” Partridge asks, impatiently.

  “I’ve spent years teaching myself Japanese. My father was fluent and his research contains a lot of translation work. I don’t speak it. But I can read it a little.” Partridge huddles next to him under the bulb. “This here,” Bradwell says, pointing to the first two characters: . “This means ‘my.’ ” And then he moves his finger to the next group . “And this is a word that I would know anywhere. It means ‘phoenix.’ ”

  “My phoenix?” Partridge says. “That doesn’t make sense. My father didn’t speak Japanese. I never heard him call my mother by any pet names. He wasn’t the type.”

  “Maybe it’s not from him,” Bradwell says.

  “What does my phoenix mean?” Partridge asks.

  “I don’t know who it’s from, but it’s loaded. It means your mother and whoever gave her the pendant knew a lot,” Bradwell says to Partridge. “Maybe she knew everything too.”

  “Everything? What’s that mean?” Partridge says.

  “Operation Phoenix,” Bradwell says. “It’s the name of the whole mission.”

  “The Detonations.”

  “Armageddon. New Eden. Your father’s baby. A new civilization would rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Clever name, right?”

  Bradwell stands up. He coughs. His neck is red. Partridge feels a little guilty now for having choked him. Bradwell hands Partridge a metal bin, probably once used for holding entrails. “Put your clothes and your mom’s things in here. We’ve got to light ’em up. Kill any chips.”

  Partridge feels dazed. He hands Bradwell the small bundle of his clothes and his backpack, though he’s taken all of his mother’s things out of it already. “What if I just pick her things clean,” he says. “I’m sure they’re fine.” He fiddles with the raised design on the front of the birthday card, looking for chips. He feels a small hard nub. He wets his fingers with his tongue and rubs the front cover of the card. The paper rubs off, disintegrating. And there is a very fine chip—thin as a slip of paper but hard, white plastic, a tiny sensor. “Shit,” Partridge says. “Is this card even real? Did my mother really write that?” He paces a quick circle. “Glassings got permission to go on this field trip,” Partridge says. “My World History teacher. Maybe they wanted me to steal the stuff. Maybe they knew I would and they planted it all.”

  “But the card could be real. The chip added later.” Bradwell holds out his hand, and Partridge drops the chip in his palm. “We’ll send them on a chase.” Bradwell fixes the chip to a wire, using some kind of strong-smelling, homemade epoxy in a jar. He unlatches the cage holding the two rat-like creatures. He cups the one-eyed rat and cradles it to his chest. The rat squirms while Bradwell wraps the wire around its middle, twisting the wire ends together to keep it in place. He then carries the rat to a drain in the floor, flips off the drain’s cap, and shoves it in. Partridge hears the rat hit the floor and skitter off.

  Bradwell pours a strong-smelling liquid on the clothes in the metal bucket. Partridge picks up the music box and winds it one last time.

  Bradwell lights the bucket. A blaze flares.

  When the song plays out, Partridge hands him the music box. Bradwell drops it in. They stand there watching the flames.

  “Where’s the photograph?” Bradwell asks.

  “Really? Even that?”

  Bradwell nods.

  Partridge doesn’t take it out of its protective pouch. He can’t look at it again. He consoles himself with the fact that he has the image burned into his mind. He holds it over the bucket, lets it fall, and looks away. He doesn’t want to see the flames peel away his mother’s face.

  Partridge then holds up a piece of the pendant that still has the loop intact where it’s attached to the necklace, the part of the pendant with the blue gem. “What if Pressia comes back here?” Partridge says. “I want her to know that we’re looking for her, that we haven’t given up on her. We could leave half of this pendant for her. We’d take the half with the inscription. She’d have the half with the blue stone.”

  Bradwell walks to the spot where the weapons are hidden. He kneels down, removes the bricks, and pulls out knives, cleavers, hooks, and a stun gun. “I don’t know about that.”

  “I can’t burn this,” Partridge says. “I just can’t.”

  Bradwell is sorting weapons. “Fine. Keep half, leave half. Heat it enough to fry chips. We’ve got to move fast now. The more time we lose, the less chance we have of getting to her.” He fits a butcher knife and a hook into straps in his jacket and in his belt loop.

  “Where are we going?” Partridge asks, lowering the neck
lace into the flames.

  “There’s only one person who I know for certain isn’t controlled by the Dome,” Bradwell says. “She lives in the Meltlands, which are vast. She’s the only person who’s got power and who we can trust.”

  “If the Meltlands are vast,” Partridge says, “how do we find her?”

  “That’s not the way it works,” Bradwell says, handing Partridge a meat hook and a knife. “We don’t find her. She finds us.”

  PRESSIA

  GAME

  NOW PRESSIA SITS ON THE EDGE of her cot and waits. For what? She doesn’t know. She has her own green uniform. It fits. The pants have pleats and cuffed hems. The cuffs brush the boots just right when she walks. The boots are heavy and stiff. She wiggles her toes in them. The socks are wool and warm. She doesn’t miss the clogs. She’d never tell her grandfather this, but she loves these boots, tough ones that stay on your feet.

  She’s embarrassed to admit that it all feels so good—clothes that are warm and fitted. Her grandfather told her that her parents took a picture of her on the first day of kindergarten, dressed in a school uniform, standing next to a tree in the front yard. This uniform makes her feel solid, protected. She’s part of an army. She has backup. And she hates herself for this undeniable feeling of unity. She hates OSR. She does. But her dark secret, one she’d never admit to anyone, especially not Bradwell, is that she loves the uniform.

  Worse still, the band tied around her upper arm has a magical hold over the other kids in her room. It has a black claw emblem stitched on it, OSR’s symbol, the same kind that’s painted on their trucks, their notices, anything official. The claw means power. The kids stare at it as much as they do her doll-head fist, as if the two cancel each other out. She hates that the uniform doesn’t let her hide her doll-head fist. The sleeves stop right at her wrist. But she’s so powerful because of the black claw armband that she almost doesn’t care. In fact, she has the inexplicable desire to whisper to them that if they, too, had doll-head fists, they’d be lucky enough to get the claw band on their arms. It’s all a twisted mix of pride and shame.