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by Annelie Wendeberg

  Once I return from the bathroom, I see my parents looking down at the certificate as if it soils the house. They say nothing. My mother is breathing heavily. Father produces a grunt. This is the shittiest certificate of the year, yet, they don’t say a peep. Full wrath would have been a normal reaction.

  Before they boil over, I sneak away to celebrate the end of hell and the beginning of my first and only menses. Maybe celebrating doesn’t quite describe what I’m doing, but two life-changing events and one life-ending event in a single day have to be acknowledged somehow, and as turbines and solitude are my favourite companions, one might even call this a party.

  Rays of sunlight caress the reservoir. Lazy ripples throw dark-golden sparks in all directions. I open my mouth wide and stick my tongue out to catch all scents, aromas, colours, and flavours. Pollen, sunlight on water, wet grass, earth. I press the soles of my feet deep into the soil until mud squeezes through the gaps between my toes. I feel so alive now I could explode. Here, with no one else to be compared to, I’m enough.

  Half of the sun is hovering above the mountains — one big fat orange slice, its bottom sawed off by a line of firs and rock. I think of an overripe peach and juice dripping down my elbows when I take a bite. It’s almost harvest time.

  Loud rattling behind me tickles my eardrums. Chain links are pulled in, the reverse-vents open while the forward-vents close — a process set in motion by the waning solar energy. Air hisses through small leaks in the piping, forming a pocket of bubbling noise. I love sitting up here on this massive, energy-generating system, watching the lights flicker on down in the village.

  When the first wave of water from the reservoir hits the turbine blades, it sounds like an avalanche of rocks banging against metal. A moment later, it’s only a soft rushing noise that mingles with the low hum of the generator. The earth beneath me vibrates — subtly and easy to miss, but it’s there. I can feel it in my feet and in the small of my back.

  And then the vibration lessens. Something’s wrong. I prick my ears. The noise of water pressing against blades grows limp. The swoosh is less than a trickle.

  Puzzled, I stand and gaze along the wall into the reservoir. Kind of stupid, because I can’t see down to where the water enters the ducts anyway.

  The quickly approaching night dictates my moves. I hurry to the control cabinet and open it. A small red warning light is blinking, indicating a resistance somewhere between the upper and the lower reservoir. The security gate that blocks all water from surging downhill is now automatically lowered and the safety brakes are engaged. As soon as the gate and the brakes are in place, I flip the main switch to keep all moving parts locked. Only a few minutes, and people in the village will sit in the dark.

  I press the button for the emergency underwater lights, yank off my shirt and pants, and…damn, the wool pad. The bloody thing has to stay here. I take it off together with my panties, and run to the dam, stark naked. Sucking in as much air as will fit in my lungs, I jump. Cold compresses my chest. I clench my teeth and strain my eyes. My surroundings grow darker with each additional metre of water I leave above me. I make a semi-yawn at the back of my throat, letting my ears pop. It’s now pitch-dark except for the four pale-green dots in the deep. I keep kicking until I see the stainless steel bars to the turbine’s mouth, illuminated by a pair of dim lights on either side. The entrance is clear.

  I turn and push hard with my arms and legs. Down here, I’m heavy. A few metres farther up, when buoyancy grabs me and lifts me higher, my lungs are ready to pop and my vision begins to flicker. And finally, my head breaks the surface. The air and the blackbird’s song taste sweet in my mouth.

  I push out on a bank, shake the water off me, and walk back to my clothes. While shimmying my wet legs into my underwear and pants, I think of chucking the gross wool pad far away. But that would only worsen the mess. I put on my shirt and climb the stairs to the top of the low-pressure turbine housing, unlock the hatch and peek into the power duct. The sun stands too low. All I see is black, with the occasional metallic reflection.

  When I gaze down towards the valley, darkness already conceals the high-pressure turbine at the very end of the narrower piping. The steel artery is a massive six feet in diameter up here and four feet wide where it spits water into the lower reservoir, but only white-and-red stakes are visible, marking the water’s path down the hill. The pipe itself is buried at two metres depth, so it won’t freeze up in winter.

  During the summer months, excess energy produced by the black solar paint covering all roofs in the village, drives the pumps that gradually fill the upper reservoir to the brim. Every night a tiny fraction of that water flows back down, pushing through the turbines and making them turn so the generators can supply energy for people to switch on lights, for the baker to run his mill, for the wire heaters in the greenhouses’ raised beds to keep the crop growing in winter, and for the butcher’s storage to keep the meat below freezing in summer. Among many other things.

  Come winter, when all excess solar energy from the summer months is stored as hydro energy up on the hill, and no more water is pumped up because the reservoir is full and the sun stands too low, the village relies almost solely on wood and what’s in the reservoir. Then, piping and turbines will run at full capacity and the vibrations up here will be epic.

  Long and hard winters hit every three to four years, and they are a problem. When the sun is still hiding behind a thick blanket of clouds in April, or even May, and snow keeps falling, covering the roofs and the solar paint; when the reservoir, root cellars, and grain barrels have been emptied, people freeze, starve, and get ill. Then the ones too old and too young die.

  Any drop of water less in that reservoir and a hard winter will become even harder. The turbine has to be fixed before sunrise. I need a torch and tools — although I don’t know which ones yet — and I have to make sure the high-pressure turbine in the valley is clear before I fiddle with the low-pressure turbine up here.

  ———

  With a bang I enter my father’s workshop, but he’s not in. Weird. I grab a torch, a bunch of tools, and an extra pack of batteries — valuables only few families have in their possession, but an absolute necessity for the turbinehouse keeper.

  When I knock the dirt off my shoes and step into the house to tell my parents where I’m going and why the power will be off for a while, Mother greets me with a tense, ‘Hello, Mickaela.’

  I stumble to a halt. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Only…Father is running a high fever.’

  He’s never had a fever in his life. Maybe my certificate made him ill. I drop my gaze to the doormat, wondering if she might unleash her fury any minute now. ‘Something’s wrong with the upper turbine. I’ll fix it quickly.’

  ‘Be careful,’ she calls after me, and I’m shocked. The last time she told me to be careful was when I was ten.

  They are still fretting about my poor grades, but what makes them so unnaturally quiet? Will they boil over once I return? Or are they already packing my stuff so they can quietly leave it at the doorstep?

  No, they would never do that. Whatever is up with my parents, I’ll deal with it later. First, I have to fix the power supply.

  I take the few steps to the high-pressure turbine, unlock the hatch to the coupling chamber, then the one to the power duct, and shine my torch into each cavity. While pushing the blades in one direction and then the other, I watch the movements of rotor and shaft and listen to the oil-slick whisper of the bearings. The turbine is clean. The generator and the control cabinet look fine, too. I lock the hatch and make my way up the hill again.

  The sky shines in a hot purple slashed with pink. Dark blue creeps in from the east and the scents of earth and grass are changing to the heavier early-night aroma. Come midnight, this will change again to a crisper scent, and again early in the morning when fog begins to rise.

  I unlock both hatches and shine my torch into the belly of the low-pres
sure turbine. A huge yellowish-grey mess is wrapped around the rotor shaft, eating into one of the bearings. Squinting, I bend lower. I’ll need at least an hour to pick that out.

  The tiny hairs on my neck prickle. What’s wrapped around the blade shaft is hemp, not plant matter from the reservoir. Someone must have put it here. But how the heck could anyone have stuffed it into a running turbine?

  I sit on my haunches and think. I had my back turned to the turbine when it stood still for the two minutes the gears need to fully switch from forward to reverse. Only my father is quick enough to unlock the hatch, jam that much hemp into the turbine, make sure it blocks the whole thing, and lock it again before I notice. But he would never threaten the functionality of his beloved machines. Besides, it might be interpreted as humour, and having a good laugh is surely not his style.

  I have no clue who could’ve done this.

  ‘Okay, douche canoe. You can show yourself now!’ I shout at the tree line.

  Nothing moves. The yck yyck yyyyyyck of a woodpecker sounds from afar. When I was little — maybe three or four years old — I ran my tongue over resins from all kinds of trees, but the word “woodpecker” always tastes of pine resin only.

  I inhale sharply to whisk away the pine flavour from my nostrils and focus on the problem. The small hairs on both my arms stand straight up. The sight of the control cabinet reminds me that anyone can flick the switch when I’m inside the duct. What a fine mess that would be! It would take days to scrape my intestines out of the bearings.

  I march to the cabinet, remove two relays, and slip them into my pocket.

  ‘Try to fix that in an hour, asshat!’ I shout, sticking both my middle fingers high up in the air. Then I squeeze myself into the gap between metal blades, support arms, and duct structure.

  My knife is sharp enough to quickly slice through the wet hemp. I stick two handfuls in my back pockets, soaking my pants. Maybe I can find out to whom it belongs. The stuff looks smooth and well-retted, not like the cheap sealing hemp. I throw armfuls of it out through the hatch. The fibres that sneaked into the bearing have to be picked one by one. The air is growing hot and stuffy in here, and sweat itches on my eyebrows. My heart bangs against my ribs when I hear footsteps above me.

  ‘Hey Micka. You down there?’

  Ralph, the idiot: son of the dean and sitting right behind me in school (I correct myself: used to sit right behind me). A perfect position to pull my braids, until I cut them off. Since then, I look like a boy and I’m treated like one. He was the first to give me a black eye. I returned it two seconds later.

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  He sounds genuinely clueless, but I don’t trust him.

  ‘Hey! I asked you what’s the matter?’

  ‘And I said I’m busy!’ I’m upgrading my fine-picking from forceps-fiddling to needle-poking now. The torch flickers. I whack it against my thigh until it provides a steady light. One last thorough examination of the bearing and the shaft, a good dollop of grease on all moving parts, and I can pack up my tools and climb up through the hatch. But not before checking where Ralph is and whether he’s wielding a stick to slap me over the head.

  He looks oddly harmless, though. Not that I would trust that, either.

  I lock the hatch, replace the relays, and flick the main switch. BLAM! WHRRRRR.

  Perfect.

  Wiping my greasy hands on my shirt, I turn to Ralph. ‘So, why did you do that?’

  ‘What? Do what?’

  ‘Wrap hemp around the turbine shaft.’

  ‘The…what?’ He blinks, then spreads his hands in front of him. ‘I did no such thing!’

  Something tells me he’s innocent. Or might be innocent. But something else tells me that he’s behaving really weirdly today. Maybe he’s nervous. But why?

  Anyway. I have no time for smalltalk. Even if I had the time, I wouldn’t waste my energy on an attempt at a conversation with Ralph — a boy who solves all conflicts with muscles instead of his central nervous system (although I’m not sure he has one).

  ‘Good. Go home, then.’ I switch the torch back on and point its light at the ground. Whoever did this must have left footprints.

  ‘Um…Micka?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was wondering… Now that school’s over, I was wondering if…you would go with me?’

  ‘All you need to do is follow the markings of the pipe,’ I mutter while searching for traces of suspicious human activity.

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  I stare at the circle of light when realisation hits me like a well-aimed kick to the stomach. The boy has smiled at me today. And yesterday. And the day before. I believed he was sick, but now I know he’s love-sick. Or something.

  The thought that someone might actually like me feels…unreal. In a good way though, even if it’s brutal Ralph liking me.

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  He taps his foot. ‘Don’t know. Um…you’re…nice. I guess.’

  I guess? What’s that supposed to mean?

  ‘I’m busy,’ I repeat and get back to my search thing.

  Behind me, he mutters, ‘I’m not good with words.’

  ‘No, you are good with your fists.’ The soil is a bit muddier close to the reservoir and I clearly see my own footprints from earlier today.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ cries Ralph. ‘Can I kiss you?’

  I’m thunderstruck. Is that how adults get together? Scream “CAN I KISS YOU” at each other? I hope not. I’ve never been kissed by anyone. I wonder how it might feel. The taste…

  ‘Okay, Ralph. One kiss. No tongue. Then you go home.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Ralph, wilting a little.

  I walk up to him so he’s not stepping into my footprint search area. He has his hands in his pockets; I have the fingers of my right hand tightly wrapped around the torch handle, the other around my bundle of tools.

  He bends forward and places a kiss on my cheek. Fuzz tickles my skin and I think of fly legs.

  Ralph quickly extracts his hands from his pockets, grabs my waist, and pulls me into him. His big wet mouth sucks on mine. He tastes of… Blah! I don’t even want to think about it!

  I struggle to break free, but his grip is too strong. I calculate my chances of success when applying various approaches of self defence, then decide for the most straightforward one.

  My knee hits his balls. He lets go at once.

  ‘Fuck, Micka!’ he squeaks, as soon as he has his voice back. ‘It just started to feel nice.’

  ‘Fuck yourself!’ Scraping Ralph’s spittle off my mouth and tongue, I stomp away and let him stand in the dark. I don’t give a shit whether he finds his way back home or not. That boy hasn’t brushed his teeth in years, if ever. What a foul-tasting rag of a tongue!

  I come to a halt. The sooner he’s gone, the better. ‘Pipe, Ralph.’

  ‘I’m not an idiot! But you are.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Blah blah blah.’ I press my tools tighter to my chest, trying not to retch. How did humanity reach an astonishing number of ten billion?

  Ralph’s stomping and muttering grows fainter while he walks in one direction, and I the other.

  I’ve almost reached the turbine when I spot a partial footprint in the lamplight; half a heel, merely, and no other prints in a radius of two metres. Someone has been careful.

  Someone clears his throat. Someone male. Adult. I jump in shock.

  ‘Micka,’ a stranger says, sounding as if he’s announcing the time.

  I press my mouth shut. The fingers of my left hand slowly probe for the large wrench inside my tool bundle. It’s there, right where the tip of my thumb is. I squeeze it harder.

  He takes two steps towards the edge of the turbine housing and jumps down, not twenty centimetres from where I stand. I can feel the air pulsating. His fast and fluid move scares me shitless. My heart chokes and my arms decide before I can form the trace of a thought.

  My right h
and swings forward, burying the torch handle in his stomach. His right shoulder twitches — he wants to bring up his arm to block the attack — a familiar reaction. If I had the time, I’d be grateful for the many fistfights I had with Ralph. My left hand is already flying and crack! the bundle of tools makes contact with the man’s skull. He freezes, his upper body tipping forward a fraction. He grunts and his knees buckle.

  I don’t wait for him to hit the ground. I bolt. Hissing and grunting, I run past Ralph, who looks at me as if he’s encountered a ghost.

  ———

  I’m barely able to breathe when I reach our house. Mother stands in the corridor as though she’s waiting for me. She looks at my sweat-covered face, then over my shoulder and into the dark outside.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘What? Who? Ralph?’

  ‘No, Mickaela! The new Sequencer!’

  ‘The…’ The word gets stuck in my throat. On his last visit in spring, the old Sequencer told us that he’d be retiring and another would take over some time during summer.

  She grabs me by my shoulders and shakes me until my jaws rattle. ‘What happened, Mickaela? What happened?’

  I can see where this is going.

  ‘Someone sabotaged the upper turbine. I found the man and hit him on the head because I thought he was about to attack me. He’s unconscious.’ I press my fist against my stomach. ‘Or worse. If he’s the new Sequencer, I’m fucked.’

  ‘We are not…’ she slaps me across my cheek. ‘…speaking such language in our house…’ and a slap for the other cheek. Her eyes are dark green and watery, her face pale. She hates me.

  I want to disappear. Like a magician, maybe, and leave a white bunny in my stead. She could have a less irritating and more loveable daughter. Saltwater presses against my eyes; I don’t want her to see it. I push past her towards the bathroom.

  With my face stinging and my eyes blurry, I yank off my clothes and hop under the shower.

  The Sequencer. The title alone opens doors. These men and women have the power to move entire cities with a single word: Cholera. Strangely, the word doesn’t taste of decomposition. It’s more like…the raspy, cold, dry, and almost salty taste of a piece of jagged rock.