by Alex Marwood
‘It’s beautiful,’ she says. ‘Now everyone will know he chose you, always.’
‘Yes,’ says Somer. ‘It’s like my medal for valour.’
Romy has no idea what she’s on about, and covers it by looking down at the baby again. She’s bald. A bit of fuzz on her head, but nothing anywhere else. I hope she’ll get eyebrows one day, she thinks. I can’t imagine I’ll ever want to look at her if she’s got no eyebrows.
‘What’s her name?’ she asks.
‘We can’t be sure,’ says Somer. ‘Until the ceremony. You know Lucien doesn’t actually make the final choice until he’s seen you face to face.’
Yes, it needs to be the right name, Romy thinks. The right name, for the One who will guide them in a new world.
* * *
* * *
And then the old world changes. One moment it’s just the three of them, and then there are footsteps and chatter in the corridor and the door bursts open and the room fills with golden people. Lucien’s brood, the Family: bigger than her, blonder than anyone, and confident in a way she can never imagine. Uri, Zaria, Rohan, Jaivyn, Fai, Leana, Inara, Lesedi, Roshin, Farial, Eilidh, Heulwen. All twelve of them, now Uri’s back – she knows their names the way she knows her catechism – and the baby makes thirteen. They’ve come to name their sister, and Lucien will be along in a minute. Somer greets them with a complacent smile, a member of their extended family now, and peels the blanket back from the baby’s face, so they can see. Romy gives them all a big grin too.
‘Okay, you can hop it now,’ says Zaria, and jerks a thumb towards the door.
Something drops, inside her.
‘No,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says Rohan, thirteen and stocky.
‘Come on, Romy,’ says Ursola, on guard respectfully in the corner. ‘It’s the Family’s time now. You can come back and see them later.’
She stares around the faces, those imperious faces. Alights on Eilidh, her best friend down in the Pigshed. The friend she’s known since she was eight months old. Eilidh’s mouth is open, her little white teeth showing. She looks up at Uri as though she’s seen a ghost. And Romy is filled with rage as she realises that despite it all she will never be one of them.
‘It’s only the proper siblings,’ says Zaria. Zaria is fifteen and has unexpected red hair. She stands out in the compound like a flaming torch.
‘I am a proper sibling!’ she cries. ‘My mum—’
Eilidh stares at her, mouths, I’m sorry, and Romy explodes with anger. ‘I’m not leaving!’ she snarls. ‘She’s my sister too.’
And then Jaivyn, twelve and always horrid, a bully wherever he goes, always arrogant, always taking the best titbits and the most comfortable spots, grabs her by the arm and starts to drag.
Romy fights back. The Teachers have had words and words with her about her temper, about the rage that can swell through her like an ocean wave. ‘NO! No! I’m not going!’ She kicks out, catches Uri by the ankle. He’s wearing mountain boots and glances down as though he’s been bitten by a flea. His upper lip curls and his eyes smile. It’s all a big bloody joke to you, she thinks, and she spits in Jaivyn’s face.
Jaivyn looks startled, then disgusted, and then he turns purple. His big meaty hand flies off her arm and sinks into her hair. Her beautiful, long black hair, all the way down to her waist and a perfect anchor for a big boy’s hand. There’s nothing she can do. He’s twice her age, and twice her size. The pain is vicious and her scalp burns as though it’s about to tear right off her skull with every jerk of her body. She’s crying now. Hot, angry, acid tears. Her eyes plead with her mother, but she’s just sitting there, holding her baby, looking sad. Doing nothing.
She’s taken my mother away, she thinks. My mother belongs to her, now.
9 | Romy
September 2001
No one comes to her aid. Crying children are always left to cry it out, unless there’s actual blood. Manipulative behaviour, Father says, wastes time and undermines. After five minutes, in which the Cooks in the Great Hall carry on laying the tables and sweeping the floor as though she were a piece of sculpture, she wipes her eyes and stands up. Takes herself back to the physic garden and applies herself to the weeds with vengeful ferocity.
She has harvested a full trug and is taking it to the compost heap when Eilidh appears through the arched gate from the graveyard. Romy raises her chin and walks past, leaves her standing by the bitter melon vines. ‘Romy,’ she says, but Romy walks on. Eilidh follows. Romy knows she’ll have to speak to her eventually, but she’s not ready yet. It used not to matter, the difference between us, she thinks. But it does now, and it hurts.
‘I’m sorry, Romy,’ says Eilidh, and Romy feels another stab of anger. Whirls round to glare at her old friend and sees big blue eyes filled with tears.
‘Crying is manipulation,’ she says. ‘Or is it okay for Father’s children?’
She’ll never be the One, Romy thinks, spitefully, as she watches Eilidh try to gulp back her tears. She’s too soft. Whoever the One is, they’ll need to be ruthless. Not bully-ruthless like Jaivyn, but not soppy like Eilidh, either.
But that’s why I like her. I can’t be mean to Eilidh. She’s never been mean to anyone, until today, and that was only by going along.
‘I’m sorry,’ her friend says again. ‘What was I meant to do? I’m the littlest of all, apart from Heulwen.’
‘And my sister,’ Romy corrects.
‘Yes,’ says Eilidh. ‘But it’s the rules. You know it’s the rules. I can’t just ignore the rules. None of us can. It doesn’t mean we’re not friends, Romy. We are. We’ll always be friends. We’ll survive the End together. But there are rules.’
‘Even if you’re the One?’
‘Of course.’
‘Even if it’s my sister?’
‘Don’t worry, Romy. We’ll be friends always, I promise you.’
‘You didn’t have to just stand there and let him ...’ says Romy, and feels herself welling up as well. Turns away to hide her face. ‘He didn’t have to do that to me.’
‘No,’ says Eilidh, ‘he didn’t. He’s horrible. Boys are horrible. I think he was showing off to Uri.’
‘Well, that’s grown-up,’ says Romy, and up-ends her trug of weeds onto the compost. Turns back and starts walking towards the bed to pull out another load.
‘He’s not grown-up,’ says Eilidh. ‘He’s just a stupid boy.’
Romy is afraid of what will happen in the End. They all are – the fear ripples through the compound every time there is news of the Outside – but realising how easily Jaivyn overpowered her has made her realise how great the danger will be. As civilisation collapses and the cities empty, they will be facing thousands of Jaivyns, however well hidden the compound is.
I need to be ready, she thinks. I can’t be like Eilidh and just drift along thinking everybody’s going to be nice. Uri’s right, we do need Guards – but we need to be able to fight back ourselves, as well. Against invaders, but also against the Jaivyns within our walls. I need a weapon. In a couple of years, I apprentice with the Blacksmiths. A knife. That’s what I want. A knife so when Jaivyn Blake comes for me I can stab his grasping hands. Everyone gets to make something useful. There’s no rule that says it can’t be a knife. And I can make the handle when I learn to be a Carpenter, before I make my graduation box. It’ll be all made by the time I’m ten.
A long time. But you need to plan, if you’re going to survive.
Eilidh follows her and kneels down next to her, starts plucking weeds too, and dropping them in the trug. ‘I didn’t make the rules, Romy.’
‘It’s not fair, though,’ she says.
‘Life isn’t fair,’ recites Eilidh, automatically. ‘The universe is cruel and unjust.’
Romy sits back on her heels and looks at her. ‘Do you even want to be the On
e?’
Eilidh shakes her head. ‘Of course not. But if I am, if I’m called, I won’t have a choice.’
‘But do you think you will be?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘And nor will Jaivyn.’
Romy thinks about this. ‘I think Uri thinks it’s him.’
‘Really?’
‘He scares me,’ she confesses. ‘He’s so ...’
‘Yes,’ says Eilidh. ‘I know.’
‘Are they all like that?’ asks Romy. ‘The Dead?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Eilidh. ‘But I’m glad I don’t live out there if they are.’
* * *
* * *
‘Of course, Eden could be the One,’ says Eilidh, generously, as they wash up their tools. ‘It could just as easily be a girl.’
Yes, thinks Romy. And if my sister is the One, they’ll have to accept me then. ‘Eden,’ she says. ‘So that’s her name?’
Eilidh gives her a beaming smile. She’s felt the shift, knows she’s forgiven. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s good, isn’t it? A good name for a Leader. It’s pure, and strong.’
10 | Somer
December 2002
Her bruises are healing, but the fear remains, self-recrimination ringing round and round. Solstice. I know about solstice, what happens if you’re stupid.
I’m sorry, she tells the universe, I’m sorry. I knew to stay in the light, and still I didn’t. Please don’t punish me further. Please let it just be a nasty moment, something I can turn my back on and forget. Don’t let there be more. Please don’t let there be more.
Somer is on duty in the Infirmary with Ursola when they bring Lucien’s daughter Farial Blake in from the Pigshed. She’s one of their regulars, for she’s a strangely clumsy child, always running into walls and falling on her face. She was here two weeks ago for a nasty cut on her foot, so Somer doesn’t feel any surprise to see her here again.
And then she sees her face, and her own fears are wiped from her thoughts.
* * *
* * *
They don’t let the Littlies near the sharp tools, but no one gave a second thought to letting Farial take apple peelings to the horses until a shriek alerted them to the fact that one of them, in the rush for goodies, had trodden on her canvas-covered foot. A swarm of adults downed tools and ran to help. A badly trimmed iron nail in the horse’s shoe had pierced clean through the canvas to the skin, but the ground was mostly mud near the gate where she stood wailing, so to everyone’s relief no bones were broken. Vita cleaned and bandaged the wound and instructed everyone to look out for signs of sepsis, and let her limp proudly back to the Pigshed to show her peers. On Friday, her Teacher confessed to carelessness and the Blacksmith admitted sloppy work on the shoe, and they accepted their penalties and all was forgiven. Lucien is a forgiving Leader, and punishments are the same whether the infraction involves the Family or an ordinary person.
Two weeks later, Farial started to grin. Not the normal smiles they all wear to face the day, but something wide and weird and wicked that sent her peers scuttling into corners with howls of fear whenever it happened. She claimed she couldn’t help it, but even as she did so she seemed to be having difficulty articulating, and when the Teacher touched her forehead she realised that it was damp and hot.
Somer is faintly irritated that she has to haul herself from the chair where she’s rolling bandages and feeling her fear when the Teacher comes in, but then she sees the hobgoblin in her arms and leaps, her lower back twanging, to her feet. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ says the Teacher. ‘Maybe it’s some sort of prank, but she genuinely can’t seem to stop. Even when I tickled her while she was doing it, her face didn’t change at all. I thought it would be best to be sure.’
‘Of course,’ says Somer, and feels the child’s forehead, though she can already see that her fringe is slick with sweat. ‘Well, she certainly has a fever,’ she says. ‘How do you feel, Farial?’
‘Head hurts.’ Her eyes suddenly widen until they are as round as cogwheels. Her lips pull back so far that Somer fears they will split and she grins and grins and grins.
Her teeth, Somer notices, are clamped together.
Ursola strolls over from the only other occupied bed in the ward. One advantage of their magnificent isolation is that outbreaks of disease are rare at Plas Golau. Someone fetched flu in with them, the winter solstice before last, and they worked round the clock for three weeks to keep the fever under control. But the population of Plas Golau is young and fit, by and large, and asthmatics never make it in through the gates, so they emerged triumphant at the other end of the epidemic with not a single death. But most of the Healers’ medical duties involve administering to cuts and bruises, the odd burn, the occasional broken bone. And, of course, growing and preserving medicinal plants for the days when nothing will grow at all.
‘What’s this?’ asks Ursola.
Farial grins and grins, and her eyes roll in their sockets. ‘Oh,’ says Ursola. She turns on her heel and runs to fetch Vita.
* * *
* * *
There will be no vaccinations in the Apocalypse. So of course there are no vaccinations at Plas Golau. Vaccinations, says Lucien, lead to a weakened bloodline, sluggish immune systems surviving where they would never have done so before. They must learn to live without them, to live more cautious lives. And, although it’s not really discussed, requests for vaccines for unregistered children would lead to inconvenient questions down in the valley. The adults, raised in the thoughtless indulgence of the Dead, will of course have been immunised in the normal run of authoritarian government interference. Not so the children. No measles vaccine, no mumps, no rubella. No whooping cough or scarlet fever. No tetanus.
* * *
* * *
Vita bustles through from the pharmacy, drying her hands on a towel as she walks. Takes one look at the child and orders her to bed.
Farial’s straining muscles collapse. Suddenly, she is a skinny ninety-year-old in the body of a seven-year-old. Klimt, thinks Somer. Like a Klimt painting. She is pale and panting, and a little trail of drool slithers out of the corner of her mouth and drips onto the front of her tunic.
* * *
* * *
There will be no hospitals in the Apocalypse. Besides, in the Apocalypse a hospital is the last place you would want to be. No resident of the Ark has been to a hospital in twenty years. You know that when you come here, when you breed here. Survival is a matter of will, of fighting back and rising above, and, if death overwhelms you or your loved ones, that is part of the contract. Will there be room for the weak, when fire has rained from the sky?
* * *
* * *
Somer tucks Farial into bed, tries to feed her a glass of water. But her throat is hard as marble and she can barely swallow, the water dripping down and wetting the pillow. Most of Vita’s medications come in the forms of liquids. Tinctures, tisanes, drenches, pills and powders. All useless now.
‘We’ll need to get a feeding tube into her,’ says Ursola, ‘for the drugs. And another to keep her airway open.’
‘A tracheotomy?’ Somer is aghast. She’s learned the basic technique from books, but no one in the compound has ever needed the real thing.
‘Toughen up,’ snaps Ursola. Three years as a registered nurse has made her an invaluable member of the community. She may be No. 188 to Somer’s 142 in the arrival order, but still she is her superior. ‘It’s the job. She still has a chance to get through this. People do survive it.’
‘How many?’
Ursola turns away. Farial may be silent, but she is still conscious.
‘Sorry,’ mutters Somer, ashamed. Every job has its unpleasant aspects. It’s not all willow bark and lavender oil. She strokes Farial’s forehead with a damp cloth while Ursola goes away to put water on to boil, to sterilise
the scalpels.
Beneath the sheet, Farial’s abdomen begins to rise off the bed as though hauled by an invisible winch. Somer can tell that she is trying to scream, but all that emerges from that carved white throat is a hiss of compressed air.
‘Someone needs to tell Lucien,’ says Ursola, and they stand in a row and stare at her.
‘I’ll tell him,’ says Vita, eventually.
* * *
* * *
In the morning, Lucien brings Farial’s mother, Luz, in to see her. Luz’s eyes are red, and no one judges, for, even in this Spartan world, the loss of the only child you will ever have is a heinous loss indeed. And Lucien’s eyes, too, are red, for, though he has many children, each life at Plas Golau is precious to him.
She is, at least, breathing now, with the help of the tracheotomy tube. And Vita has broken out some of the small stock of the opium she distils from home-grown poppies. They were concerned at first that the feeding tube would never survive the pressure of that clamping jaw, but one by one her baby teeth have cracked and been spat out, and no longer pose a danger. She lies drowsy and silent against a pillow and twists in and out, in and out of spasm.
Luz stands over the bed and gulps air. Somer feels inadequate, unequal to this task. If it were my child, she thinks. If it were Romy or Eden, I would want to die. I would want to die too. Then she thinks, Oh God, please let there just be Romy and Eden. Please let there be no more than the two of them. Please. I’ll do anything if you make me not be pregnant. And then she remembers that there is no God, and her gorge contracts.