by G. P. Ching
“Of what?”
“That you didn’t grow up in Crater City.” He points over my shoulder and to my left. “That way. It’s a couple of miles north.”
I flatten myself against the wall and allow him to take the lead. “How does eating eggs convince you I’m telling the truth?”
He clears his throat. “Is it true, what you said, that eggs come from a chicken’s butt?”
“Sure. Well, technically it’s called a cloaca but, you know, the egg and everything else comes from the same place.”
“I never knew.”
“Where did you think they came from?”
“The food factory, like everything else. Eggs here come pre-scrambled in a carton and the ingredients are mostly chemicals. I just figured they grew the base in a lab, like they do chicken.”
“Huh?” I’m completely lost. I know what a chemical is, but the idea that Englishers eat them is foreign to me.
“You know, chicken breast. It’s never actually a living chicken. They just take a cell and coax it in a lab to become a chicken breast.”
“They can do that here?”
“Yeah, they have to because of the animal cruelty laws. Farming’s been illegal since the war. I think that was probably a big reason for the wall. The Green Republic couldn’t deal with being accused of genocide, and your community was so heavily vested in farming. The Raw Milk trials and everything.”
Every citizen of Hemlock Hollow knows about the Raw Milk trials. Before the war, the government tried to make drinking unpasteurized milk illegal. Amish fought the law because we don’t pasteurize our milk. The trials went on and on until the war and the wall became a suitable solution.
“It’s considered cruel here to kill and eat a chicken, but not to use a human being as a battery?”
“You have a lot to learn about the Green Republic, Lydia.”
Homesickness presses its heavy hand against my heart. “I think I’ve learned enough,” I murmur.
For the next quarter mile, I follow Korwin in silence, feeling sorry for myself. Why me? Why, after generations of Amish going on rumspringa without incident, do I end up getting arrested? But then my father’s voice comes to me. “Don’t ask ‘why me,’ Lydia. Ask, “Why not me?’ Who are we to question God’s will?”
“How long were you a prisoner at CGEF?” I ask, because the surest way to stop dwelling on your own problems is to think of someone else’s.
“What’s the date today?”
“September fifteenth.” My stomach sinks at the horror of being trapped somewhere without so much as a means to track the time.
“A little over three weeks.”
“They drained you for three weeks?”
“Hence the scurvy. I don’t think I would’ve lasted much longer if you hadn’t come along.”
“Thank the Lord.”
He snorts. “Thank you.”
We come to a cross pipe.
Korwin looks each way into the dark hollow. “I don’t suppose you’d know which way was north?”
“How could I without the sun?”
“Some secret Amish way?”
I smile and shake my head. “I thought...”
“You thought I knew where I was going? That I’d been down here before?”
I nod.
“Yes and no. Yes, I’ve escaped through the sewer. But no, not this section. My knowledge of this area is mainly academic. We need to go north.”
“My gut tells me north is to your right,” I say. “But it’s a guess.”
He pauses, scanning both directions. A scraping echoes down the pipe from the left. Korwin rubs his upper arms with his hands as if the sound gives him the chills. I’m not cold at all, but then, I have the benefit of the silver jacket.
“Right it is,” he says.
My shoes are caked with filth and squish grotesquely with each step. I’m glad for the darkness because I can’t see what I’m stepping in. “Are you sure the police won’t search down here?” I ask.
“They don’t think we’ll risk it.”
“Why not?”
“Sewer rats. Since the war, they grow as big as pumas.” Korwin rubs his upper arms again, and I realize it is not the cold giving him a chill.
I stop walking and scan the dark pipe. My blood runs cold, my skin crawling.
Korwin turns when he notices I’m not following. “Don’t worry about the rats. Most of the time, when they hear us coming, they run away. Even though they’re big, they’ve inherited their smaller relatives’ fear of humans.”
I catch up to him, walking closer than before. Licking my lips, thirst nags me. I try to think of something else to talk about to distract me from it. “Korwin, was that the first time you’ve been captured?”
“Yes.”
“How did you evade Dr. Konrad as long as you did? I mean, if you never left Crater City after the experiment?”
He sighs. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.” My nervous laugh echoes through the tunnel.
“My mother hid me with a stranger she hoped would be sympathetic to my cause. Remember how I told you the experiment was funded by the Green Republic?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there was a man who led the opposing political force to the Green Republic, a grass roots group called the Liberty Party. She left me on the man’s property. Turns out it was a good bet. He believed her story and took me in. He adopted me. We’ll be safe with him.”
“How did you get captured?”
“That…is an even longer story. I’ve shared enough. Your turn to answer a few questions. Like, what the hell are you doing in Crater City if you’re part of the preservation? I thought no one got in or out.”
“We have a tradition in my Ordnung called rumspringa. Before you’re baptized, you spend some time among Englishers, to make sure it’s what you want.”
“But that’s not how it’s supposed to work. My tutor said the Green Republic walled you in so you could have your independence without infecting the general population with your choices. You’re unvaccinated. You kill animals and use leather and drive buggies. No offense, but I thought part of the deal was you couldn’t come and go as you please. Hell, the rumor is that most of you died off from the radiation.”
Now I regret telling him the truth, but there’s no going back. “We’re not dead, obviously.” I spread my hands. “It’s not our law.”
“What do you mean it’s not your law?”
“The Green Republic made up those rules and forced them on us. We never agreed. Morally, we don’t need to follow unjust laws.”
“But how do you get out?” Korwin glances over his shoulder at me as if I’m completely missing the point.
“I told you. We just leave. It’s not like the wall has armed guards anymore and even if there were, we’d find a way. Englishers on the outskirts, in Willow’s Province, help us and provide safe houses. It’s been done for generations.” I decide not to give him specifics about the gate in the Outlands. No matter how much I trust him, that is one secret I decide to keep.
“Wow. I never knew. How long do you stay?”
“A few weeks, sometimes longer. Rarely, a person will stay forever.”
“That’s impossible. You’d need to get a work permit, and there’s no way they’d give you that without records of your education and vaccinations.”
“We’ve always had help outside of Hemlock Hollow.”
“Interesting. My dad is going to be fascinated with you.”
“Is he interested in Amish life?”
“No.” Korwin stops abruptly and looks me in the eye. “He’s interested in freedom.” We’ve stopped under the squares of light of an access point. He mounts the ladder on the wall and climbs to the grate.
Click-click-clank. My eyelids flutter at the unbroken sunbeam that floods past Korwin’s body. He disappears into the light and then beckons me to follow. I crawl out of the hole and join him on a mercifully abandoned stretch
of sidewalk. The sun is directly above us, noon. In the light of day, I can see the remnants of our journey smudged across my sleeves and shoulders, where I must have nudged the inside of the pipe. My jeans have dark splotches from cuff to knee.
Korwin looks just as soiled. I say a silent prayer that the sores on his arms won’t become infected.
“This way. Usually there isn’t much traffic out here during the day,” he says, leading me across the street and up a driveway.
On our right, a tall hedge partially cloaks an even taller fence. Korwin approaches a metal box attached to a gate as big as a barn door. A face pops up on a screen inside the box, a tightly groomed man in a bowtie and apron.
“Can I help—Korwin!” The man gasps. The gate beeps and slowly swings open. “I’ll tell your father you’re here. Thank goodness.”
Korwin motions for me to follow. I jog through the gate, fascinated by the automation. Even after everything I’ve seen, I marvel at the technology.
“How does it work?” I ask, turning toward Korwin. I don’t register his answer. I’m too distracted by the house on the hill in front of me. It’s five times as large as the largest barn in Hemlock Hollow, with a manicured lawn and flowering shrubs of a variety I’ve never seen.
Korwin places a hand on my shoulder. “Welcome to Stuart Manor, Lydia. This is home.”
8
“This is your home?” I gawk at the mansion, with its ivy-covered walls and gigantic wooden door.
A bald man with coffee-colored skin similar to my friend Mary’s strides out of the manor toward us. He sweeps Korwin into a hug, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“You might not have. I thought I was dead. I was as good as dead,” Korwin says.
The reunion is warm, even loving, but there’s something missing. It hovers on the edge of emotional but never crosses the line into the type of family intimacy I’m used to. I wonder if it’s an English thing.
“How did you escape?” his father asks.
“This is how.” Korwin points at me.
His father extends his hand in my direction. “I’m Maxwell Stuart. Thank you for bringing Korwin home.”
“I did less than you might think,” I say, shaking his hand. “To be honest, it would be fairer to say we saved each other.”
Korwin clears his throat. “This is Lydia, Dad.”
The smile fades from Maxwell’s face. His eyes sweep over me from head to toe. “Should I ask how you ended up in CGEF’s detention center?”
“She’s like me.”
Maxwell laughs. “What do you mean, like you?”
“She’s a Spark.” Korwin grabs my hand and holds the crusty sore in his father’s direction.
Korwin’s dad stares at the sore then lifts my hand and inspects it from all sides. His Adam’s apple bobs with the effort of a strong swallow. He drops my hand as if I’ve burned him and meets my eyes, cupping his mouth for a few tense moments. “Where did you come from? I have so many questions.” He scans the sky, as if to check for God’s own prying eyes. “Let’s go inside. You must be starving, and Korwin, those sores on your arms need treatment.”
The man from the gate, in the suit and apron, holds the big wooden door open for us. Once inside, metal grinds against metal as the heavy door locks itself. I perch on the edge of the welcome mat, trying my best not to soil the wood floors that go on and on across the gigantic room. The place is so large, I wonder if my footsteps will echo.
Music plays from Maxwell’s person and we all pause inside the door while he pulls a thin piece of plastic from his pocket, identical to the one in my treebox. He pokes at the front. “I have to take this,” he says to the man in the apron and abruptly leaves the room.
“Master Korwin, the healing room is prepared for you in the training center,” the man says.
“Thanks.” He turns toward me. “Lydia, I’ll see you later. I’ll help you with your hand when I’m through, okay?”
I nod. What’s a healing room? And why does he need to help with my hand? All I need is a small bandage.
“Jameson will take care of you.” Korwin disappears down a flight of stairs to the left.
I fold my hands, hoping beyond hope that Jameson will offer me a place to get cleaned up. He turns his full attention on me, his eyes widening at my appearance.
“Lydia, is it?” he asks softly.
“Yes.”
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Thanks. Nice to meet you, too.”
“If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your room.”
My room. Thank goodness. I slip off my shoes and pad after him in my relatively clean socks. He leads me down the same flight of stairs Korwin descended and through an entryway that maintains the home’s charm, but with muscle—a foot-thick, shiny metal door. Unlike upstairs, there are no windows. But the carpet under my feet is plush and the art that hangs on the walls woos me with its captivating array of colors and textures.
“This is incredible.” I stop in front of a floor-to-ceiling-sized painting of palominos galloping through a glade. The horses themselves are fairly ordinary, but the colors—blues, violets—pull me in. I’ve never seen art like this; my fingers reach for it before I catch myself and return my hand to my side.
“Painted by Master Korwin. One of my favorites as well.”
“He painted this?”
“Yes. He’s an accomplished artist. It’s unfortunate that his fate and genetics have dealt him the hand they did. I’ve always felt his talents should be shared with the world.”
I nod. Jameson continues down the hallway but I lag behind to absorb the artwork for one moment more before following him. At the end of a maze of hallways, Jameson opens a white door.
“Here you are.” He extends his arm into a room that is something out of a dream.
As large as the first floor of my house in Hemlock Hollow, the room features a bed swaddled in white downy linens. On the far wall, a window reveals a large green yard. The window confuses me because I thought we were in a basement. I walk to the glass and watch a butterfly flit behind the panes. Only, halfway across the glass the orange and black colors of the monarch morph to pink and blue.
“Oh!” I take a step back. The sky out the window is cloudless. This isn’t right. This isn’t the world I left outside the door.
“It’s a hologram, Miss Lydia,” Jameson says. He taps on the windowpane. “It’s an artificial window.”
I understand what he’s saying but I gape at him, dumbfounded. How can this be? Turning, I take in the rest of the room. There’s a small sitting area at the end of the bed that looks cozy and a frame on the wall holding a classical painting of Water Lilies—Van Gogh, I think, or maybe Monet. I only recognize it from a book I read once. Based on Jeremiah’s description, I think the art might actually be a television. The material, slightly luminescent, is too thin to be an actual canvas.
“Through here is the bathroom,” Jameson says, passing his hand inside a doorway. The lights come on, presumably from his movement.
The room is pearly white with a tub, separate shower, and a toilet fancy enough for me to question whether I can figure out how to use it.
“Your bathrobe is there on the hook. If you would kindly leave your soiled garments outside the door, I would be pleased to see to them for you.”
“Oh Jameson, I can wash them myself. I’d hate to be a burden.”
Jameson relaxes into a genuine smile. “This is my job. I’m happy to do it, and it makes me feel useful.”
I don’t want to offend him. “Of course. I’ll leave them outside the door.”
“Good.” For a moment, he stares at me expectantly and I wonder if there is some Englisher custom I am forgetting. Shifting from foot to foot, he finally breaks the silence. “I’m sorry to be so forward, but you look familiar to me. Have we met before?”
“No. I’m not from here.”
“Where are you from?”
“Willow’s Province.”
“Oh.” He sighs and shakes his peppered gray head. “I must be mistaken.” Regaining his formal composure, he points back into the bedroom. “The refrigerator is stocked with water and snacks if you need something to tide you over until next meal.” He steps over to what looks like a wardrobe and swings open the door. A tiny kitchen is concealed there: a basket of fruit and bread, a small sink, and a half-sized refrigerator.
My eyebrows shoot up. I cannot comprehend the opulence.
He gives a slight bow and turns on his heel, closing the door behind him.
Turning circles in the gleaming white of my guest room, I finally allow myself to cry. I have no idea where Jeremiah is or what he must be thinking. I wonder if I can safely visit my father now that I’m a fugitive. I am an entire world from home, covered in grime. The filth of this world is sinking in, penetrating my skin and burrowing straight to the bone. My empty stomach heaves, and I rush into the bathroom.
But it’s too late for me to expel what this new world has done to me.
9
A person can only get so empty before their instincts, raw and primal, demand attention. One moment I am on my knees on the white tile floor of the bathroom, and the next, I am frantically foraging in the pantry Jameson introduced to me. I eat like an animal, hand to mouth, not bothering with the plates provided. A piece of bread, a slice of cheese, peanut butter straight off the spoon. I guzzle from a bottle of water I find in the tiny refrigerator. I eat so fast, I don’t taste any of it.
Sated, I leave my mess of clothes outside the door and walk naked into the bathroom. It takes me fifteen minutes to figure out how to use the shower. Out of frustration I start sobbing again. But through trial and error I finally get the temperature and pressure right. I step in. Warm water sprays my face, mixing with my tears before washing the stench of dung and disappointment down the drain. About the time I finish scrubbing, I knit myself back together. My tears dry up in the final rinse, and I turn off the water with the same torque as I close off my self-pity.
Stepping from the shower, I find everything I need and some things I don’t in a basket on the counter. I brush my teeth and hair and wrap the fluffy white bathrobe around me before exiting into the main bedroom chamber. Apparently Jameson has let himself into the room while I bathed. A gorgeous swath of colorful material stretches across the bed. Resting on top is a note written in painstakingly neat handwriting. I capture the paper between my fingers.