Sitting upright, she looked around at her surroundings. She was in a room about the size of the one she had shared with Verena. Too big to contain only the one narrow bed she was sitting on, the nightstand on which someone had left a tray with some food and a pitcher of water, and a worn-looking chair. On the wall opposite the bed, a rectangular window opened on a sight she wasn’t able to categorize at first. Bright light inundated the room, but she wasn’t looking at the desert. She left the bed and tiptoed on bare feet to the window. Before her eyes lay a city the likes of which she had never seen.
She leaned over the windowsill and peeked outside, her head going up and down to take in the whole picture. She was inside a gigantic funnel made of red rock. A natural conic formation, which had been excavated inside to make space for human dwellings. At its base, several stories below her window, there were plazas and what looked like gardens. The whole place looked still in the construction stages: some of the structures were finished; others were being built. She looked up and saw that the funnel ended in a big opening from where the light came in.
A knock made her jump. She swung around and saw the door to the right of the bed. “Yes?” she automatically said.
“Can we come in?” an adult male voice asked.
She looked down at herself, and besides not wearing shoes, she still had her dusty clothes on.
“Yes.”
The handle was lowered and two men entered. One was older, maybe in his forties or fifties, difficult to judge since he had some gray hair, but he also carried the bearing of a younger man. The other was definitely younger, in his late twenties, as lean in physique as the older. It was always hard to guess a man’s age.
“How do you feel?” the older man asked. His voice was warm and his dark-brown eyes gentle.
“Fine, where’s Grant?” Marie had retracted to the window, her eyes darting between the two men and the open door.
The older man walked a step closer to her. “Your friend needs to rest some more—”
Panic swelled in her chest. “Where is he? Why isn’t he here with me?”
The older man raised his hands in the air, a gentle smile tugging at his mouth. “Don’t worry. We took him to the infirmary. He was severely dehydrated.”
“Do you want to see him?” the younger man asked.
“May I?” Marie was already heading to the door.
“Of course you can. But wouldn’t you like to eat something first?” He looked at the untouched tray.
“It can wait.” She only wanted to see him and make sure he was fine.
The two men seemed pleased by her reaction. The younger showed her the way with a flourish of his hand. “After you.” He waited for her to pass them and then added, “We weren’t sure you were out there of your own will.”
For some reason, she felt the urge of defending Grant’s honor. “Of course I was!”
The older man smiled. “Later, I’d love to hear your story, Marie.”
She stopped in her tracks and stared at him. “How do you know my name?”
His smile widened. “Your friend—Grant you said his name was—right?”
She nodded.
“Grant called your name several times in his sleep.” He gave another warm look and then waved his hand in the air as if he were forgetting something. “This is Lucas—”
The younger guy tipped his head in salute.
“And everybody knows me as the Priest.” The older man said his name as if it were an amusing joke.
She wondered about the title. As far as she knew, there were no such things as priests on Ginecea. She didn’t even know there was a male version of the word priestess.
“Life has a sense of humor sometimes that is difficult to understand.” The Priest seemed to have read her mind.
Meanwhile, they had reached the end of a landing that ended in a low parapet overlooking the hustle below. “Welcome to the City of Men.” Lucas’s eyes swept from side to side and she followed his gaze to take in the incredible sight.
“How long have you been building it?” She couldn’t help but be impressed.
“Almost thirty years.” The Priest leaned out from the parapet and waved at a group of men working below. They were excavating a new house from the look of it. “There’re still so many things to do.”
She thought that whatever they had done was nothing short of a miracle already.
“But I don’t think you’re interested in the city tour.” The Priest turned to face the corridor that ran the length of the parapet and disappeared behind an arch. “Your friend is this way.” He walked under the arch and gestured for her to follow them through another long corridor at the end of which stood a door.
Marie walked behind the two men, looking at the activities taking place downstairs. “Are there only men living here?” She had been looking for a woman for the last five minutes and didn’t see one.
She saw Lucas exchanging a glance with the older man who nodded. He tilted his head over his right shoulder to peek at her. “Women don’t live inside the city.”
“They don’t?”
Lucas shook his head.
“But why?” She was confused.
“Unfortunately, even in the middle of the desert, Ginecea still rules our hearts.” The Priest sighed.
“Some of the men aren’t comfortable around women, and so the women prefer to live outside the city proper,” Lucas explained.
“But, I’m here.” She looked around, suddenly nervous.
“Nobody would dare lay a hand on you. You’re under the Priest’s protection.” Lucas smiled at her.
Marie didn’t feel reassured. “What about the other women?”
Lucas frowned, but the Priest seemed to have understood her question. “Any person who asks asylum is welcome here. Men, women, and kids are all under my protection.”
“Do you have kids?” She gave a brief glance downstairs to confirm what she already knew. There were only male adults around.
“We have men and women living together.” Lucas smiled.
She saw he didn’t mean to be crude, but she still blushed. Certain habits are difficult to forget. “Of course.” They were at end of the corridor.
“We have several mixed families.” The Priest paused before the door. “But they prefer to live separate from us.” He knocked on it.
She shrugged. “Why?” After spending time at Vasura, she wasn’t as shocked to hear that they had mixed families as she should have been and didn’t understand why they would keep by themselves when they could have stayed there.
Both men turned to look at her in puzzlement.
“They are men and women who have kids—” It was clear Lucas tried to be as gentle as possible while breaking the truth to her.
“I know what you meant by mixed.” It was her turn to smile.
“And it doesn’t sound strange to you?” the Priest casually asked, but the light in his eyes betrayed his interest in her answer.
She felt she was being judged, but it didn’t matter. “Not anymore.”
Lucas’s mouth opened, but someone screamed from the other side of the door.
“What did you do to her?” a hoarse voice distorted by the walls demanded.
Lucas sprung the door open. “What’s…?”
The Priest raised one hand to stop Marie from entering the room. “Wait here.” He followed Lucas inside.
Scuffling noises reached her ears. One or more chairs were thrown around by the sound of it. “Take me to her! Now!”
Marie recognized Grant’s voice and stormed inside without thinking. Several people turned to look at her. The scene she witnessed would have been comic if it weren’t for the fact that Grant was fighting three men who seemed to be trying to prevent him from harming himself, and Grant looked like he could barely stand. As soon as he saw her, he fell on the floor like a sack of potatoes. A stark naked sack of potatoes. “Grant…” Her first instinct took her by his side in two strides, but then her eyes went
to his private parts and she choked back a cry.
A long, awkward moment passed before any of the people reacted. Lucas finally came to their rescue by removing a linen sheet from a bed and draping it around Grant, who wearily thanked him and then asked Marie if she was okay.
“I’m fine. What about you?” She couldn’t help but see him naked although he was entirely covered by the white sheet. She’d had only a brief peek before averting her eyes, but one thing was clear: he was quite different from her.
“Now, I am too. I was worried they had done something to you.” He had lowered his voice on the second statement, but Lucas shook his head and the Priest sighed. “She’s a fathered girl.” He looked at them in defiance.
Although she was sure at least Lucas wanted to reply to Grant, he didn’t. Instead, he waited for the Priest to answer. “Nothing will happen to her while she’s here. I promise.”
Grant bit his bottom lip, gave her a sideways look, and ate back whatever he had thought of saying. “Thank you.”
The Priest nodded. “Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared, can I ask you, both of you, what your intentions are?”
Grant’s eyes widened, his hands clutching at the sheet. “We have nowhere to go.”
The Priest looked at Marie. “Is it true for you too?”
She felt an unfamiliar sting to her heart. “Ginecea sentenced us both to death.” She hadn’t realized until now how painful it was to face reality. She had been busy running for her life with no time to reminisce, but she truly was dead to the world. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“Are you looking for asylum?” Lucas turned from her to Grant.
She looked at Grant.
He reached out and took her hand in his. “Only if she’s welcome too and only if we can live together.”
The Priest was waiting for her to say the words.
She didn’t have to think about her answer. “I’ll only stay with him.”
“You look too young to live together,” Lucas commented, one eyebrow raised.
“If we’re not welcome here, we’ll leave.” Grant threw an arm over her shoulders and lifted himself upright.
“We’ll find a place right for us.” Marie looked at the door, but the Priest stopped her.
“I would never send anybody away. Especially two children.” He smiled and then reached them and cupped their united hands in his. “I declare you citizens of the City of Men.” He gave both of them a paternal embrace.
“They’re barely older than Randal,” Lucas muttered under his breath.
“Your son is a toddler.” The Priest turned to him and chuckled.
Lucas gave them another look and then waved his hand in their direction, as if the gesture were self-explanatory. “Exactly my point.”
The Priest dismissed him with one of his quiet smiles and said to Grant, “I see that you’ve recovered sooner than we expected.”
The three men Grant had been hitting with the chairs, which lay upside down on the floor, nodded their consent for him to leave the infirmary. “He’s all yours,” one of them said, relief evident in his voice.
“What about some clothes?” Lucas gave Grant a thorough look, the corner of his lip turning up in an amused smile.
“There’s a change of clothes ready for him.” The man who had talked earlier pointed toward one of the linen cabinets on the opposite wall.
“Then it’s settled. Thank you.” The Priest helped the three men straightening up the chairs, while Grant hastily donned a shirt and a pair of pants from behind the sheet Lucas held for him as a screen.
“Are we decent?” the Priest asked Grant but winked at Marie. “If you feel like it, we could show you the city and then let you decide where you want to stay.” After Marie and Grant nodded, he motioned for them to follow him outside.
Only a step out on the corridor and her stomach growled. She pressed both hands on her belly to silence it. Without looking at her, Grant complained about being too hungry to be able to do anything.
“I could use some breakfast myself. How about you, Lucas?” The Priest took the lead and guided them out of the first corridor, but instead of entering the arch, he opened a door she hadn’t noticed before, focused as she was on the sight below.
They walked through a short hallway that resembled a nursery by the number of potted plants dotting the floor and hanging from the walls. “One of my pet projects.” The Priest caressed a succulent leaf jutting out from one of the vases near the door. “We need to change the acidity of the soil,” he commented, but it sounded like a note to himself.
The hallway opened to a staircase that wound up for several floors. Marie didn’t mind the hike, but given her dislike for small, crowded spaces—although the stairwell was lit by sconces and decorated with more plants and even an attempt at a partial mural of a seascape—she was glad when they reached the landing that opened on the open space that constituted the inner part of the city.
“Sorry, more stairs to climb.” The Priest showed her the next stairwell.
Rounding the corner, her eyes went to an elaborate metal cage opening onto the landing suspended by a sturdy-looking cable.
“We’re working on it, but the elevator isn’t ready yet.” The Priest looked at the contraption with proud eyes.
“I won’t ever step inside that thing,” Lucas commented, passing by. “And it takes too much manpower to operate it anyway.”
Marie would have preferred riding the elevator, even if it meant being suspended in midair for several minutes. Anything was better than climbing stairs that were becoming narrower and narrower as they went up. The hike seemed to take forever.
Lucas’s words partially echoed her thoughts. “Still can’t understand why you chose to live up here. What’s wrong with the ground floor?”
“Nothing wrong with that. I just like to be close to the sky.”
The Priest’s wistful tone made her think there was a whole story behind that sentence, but they were finally stopping before a door at the end of what was hopefully the last landing, and she was happy for the light. The older man didn’t knock, but lowered the handle and entered.
Before following him inside, she took a good look at the view from the parapet and felt immediately dizzy. She raised her eyes and saw they were close to the very top of the city. From downstairs, she hadn’t realized how big the opening on the city’s ceiling was. The circular hole was so large she had an unobstructed view of the sky above. She didn’t have a way to compare its size with anything else, but the opening was probably as vast as several stadiums combined.
Standing by her, Grant too was contemplating the structure. “Is it natural?”
Lucas, already on the other side of the door, stepped back and looked up. “Yes. An unexpected gift from Mother Nature.”
“Coming in?” the Priest called.
Lucas led them in first and then closed the door behind. “To the kitchen.”
They walked through a small corridor on which three doors opened, and they found the older man in the last room. “Have a seat.”
Marie and Grant sat at the table, nothing more than a beam on four legs. She noticed the look and hastily thrown-together feel the place emanated. “Have you been here for long?”
“No, he just moved a few days ago,” Lucas answered.
The Priest had his back to them, busy at what looked like a rudimentary stove. “The moving wasn’t so bad.”
“For you it wasn’t. I was the one hauling all your stuff.” Lucas sat on the last vacant stool, saw it was rickety, and stood up again to check one of its three legs.
“You wanted to help.” The older man’s shoulders moved as if he were trying to quit laughing without Lucas being the wiser. It didn’t work.
The younger man turned his eyes to the ceiling. “I really don’t understand why you would prefer to live here alone when you could be closer to the people who care about you.”
The Priest tinkered some more with the stove and then mo
ved out of the way to reveal a teapot and a pan. “You worry too much about me.” His hands full, he walked to the table, balancing the fuming teapot, the pan containing scrambled eggs, and a knit bag hanging from his left little finger. “Your sister’s tea-scones.”
“Can’t believe it. Lorena cooks my favorites for you and not for me.” Lucas took the knit bag from him and arranged the contents on a plate, handling the scones with care.
The smell of baked goods invaded the small room and Marie’s stomach made a sound so loud everybody laughed, herself included. Lucas handed her one of the scones, while the Priest fetched cups for the tea. She ate in silence. “I’ve never tasted anything as good as those scones,” she said when the last crumb disappeared inside her mouth, which elicited a second round of laughs.
“I’ll tell my sister, but I won’t specify you were starved and severely dehydrated.” Lucas reached for the pan and served her a heaving portion of scrambled eggs. “Catch of the day. Gift of our chicken coop.”
“Where are we going to stay?” Grant abruptly asked, playing with the food on his plate. He had stood silently beside her the whole time, seemingly lost in his thoughts. “Not here, right?”
The Priest removed a cloth satchel from the teapot and wrung it with a teaspoon, then slowly poured the tea for everybody. “One day, the City of Men will be a place safe for everybody. We’re working hard to reach that, but we aren’t there yet.”
Marie sipped her tea, her heart heavy. She liked it there. “So?”
The Priest drank from his cup and then answered, “Two friends of mine have built a safe place for mixed couples and they have a teenage daughter—”
Lucas smacked his forehead. “The Sanctuary, of course. Excellent idea.”
The Priest gave him a look.
“What is this Sanctuary?” Grant laid a hand on hers under the table.
“What I said, a place where heterosexual couples can live.” The Priest put his cup on the table. “Have second and third helpings and then we’ll go meet Arias and Guen.”
Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) Page 27