The Duty and the Gone (The Fertility Plague Book 1)

by Claire Vale

  My stomach hollowed with apprehension as I looked at her expectantly.

  I’d asked before, but now there was actually a chance Mom might answer.

  Jessie was my best friend and this little fantasy had grown and taken root. We shared everything. It was a miracle I’d kept this secret from her the last two years. We’d always done everything together and I couldn’t imagine having this huge thing in my life that she wasn’t part of.

  Mom grimaced, shaking her head.

  “No?” The air in my lungs deflated. “She isn’t a Sister?”

  “No, I can’t tell you,” Mom said. “That hasn’t changed.”

  “I’m about to graduate,” I said huffily, although my spirits lifted. I didn’t have my answer about Jessie, but at least it wasn’t a ‘No!’ “When are you going to trust me?”

  “It’s not about trust, darling.”

  I gagged noisily on the blatant lie. The Sisterhood was so secretive, the only members I knew of were myself and Mom.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she amended. “Right now, there’s another mother having this same conversation with her daughter. This is how she keeps her daughter safe, and this is how I keep you safe. The slightest rumor that the Sisters of Capra even exist would send the wardens on a witch hunt. You know all this.”

  I did know all this.

  The first incarnation of the Sisterhood, way back when, had taken to the streets with placards, marching and protesting the loss of their freedoms. It had all ended abruptly in disaster, with what Mom called The Scraping. They’d been plucked from their homes and quietly removed from society in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Scraped from the town like cow dung scraped from the bottom of your shoe.

  Still, I blew out a disgruntled sigh.

  “Have patience, Georga,” Mom said. “When and as required, you will meet other members and your network will gradually expand. With your marriage into the Edgar family, I have no doubt you’ll soon get the chance to prove yourself invaluable to the Sisterhood.”

  3

  Thoughts of the Sisterhood and tomorrow’s graduation consumed me as I cycled along the lakeside path to our picnic spot.

  If the Sisters of Capra had a mission statement, I obviously hadn’t yet earned the privilege to hear it. All I had were Mom’s vague and very occasional references to things like ‘removing women from untenable situations’ and ‘adjusting the balance of power.’

  Mom had always been adamantly clear about one thing, though. My first priority was, would always be, my duty to society—to marry well and provide a happy, loving home for my husband and children.

  Without future generations to fight for, there’d be no point to anything at all.

  No one disputed the principles on which the society of Capra were based, even if we were divided over the reason for our downfall.

  Back then, women were more interested in their careers and pursuing selfish agendas than procreating. They abused all kinds of contraceptives and hormone medications to pause their menstruation for convenience. They froze their eggs so they could put off marriage and children until their forties, sometimes even later.

  The Puritans believed God sent the plague to punish women and warn the men. Repent your wicked ways before it’s too late. After all, He had created man in his likeness to walk the earth freely and rule. He’d created women as a companion to man and to procreate. Apparently we’d been on a downward spiral since the Garden of Eden and our day of reckoning had come in the form of the Fertility Plague.

  I was personally more inclined toward the evolution school of thought. If you don’t use it, you lose it. That’s how evolution worked, it snuck up on you over hundreds and hundreds of years. Our reproduction system gradually weakened, an organ tricked into believing it was no longer required, and then the plague came to finish it off altogether.

  But whether you blamed God or evolution, the fact remained. The Eastern Coalition couldn’t survive forever on stores of frozen ovarian eggs. They were still researching a cure, but even if they found one, we would still be compromised, vulnerable to future attacks.

  We had to fix nature. Fix what our ancestors had broken. We had to remind our bodies that procreation was our primary purpose.

  That was our duty. Marry. Look after our husbands and raise our children.

  That was our responsibility. Else one day there’d simply not be a ‘next generation.’

  I had no argument with that philosophy, but we had no freedom and virtually no choices either. We were nothing without our fathers or husbands. Complete obedience and subservience was mandated. We couldn’t even wander outside after curfew unless accompanied by our male legal guardian.

  I knew what the council was afraid of. We’d learnt all about it in Social Conscience. They were afraid women would fall back into their old ways if given too much leeway…any leeway at all. We had proved ourselves unworthy custodians of the life-giving role God and/or Mother Nature had blessed us with and now the men were taking charge.

  What a load of crap.

  Our ancestors had made mistakes, sure, but we’d all learnt our lesson from the fatal consequences. That’s exactly why even the Sisters of Capra believed our duty to society was more important than their cause. We weren’t complete idiots with a mass death wish for all mankind.

  We just wanted—well, I wasn’t trusted enough to know what exactly the Sisters of Capra wanted, but I knew what I wanted.

  A little autonomy and respect.

  A voice.

  I just wanted one freaking hand on the wheel steering me into my own future.

  The path wound around a clump of trees, cutting the lake from view. A patrolling guard stepped off the path to allow me to pass. I felt his stern, watchful eyes following as I pedaled slightly faster. Even out here, on a path winding between the lake and back gardens, there was no privacy, no relief from the eternal watchfulness.

  To my right, lush gardens stretched up to spacious homes. A flock of birds swept overhead, the formation so large it cast a shadow over the sky. Capra was a beautiful, prosperous town. Despite the obvious irritations, I felt fortunate and privileged to live here. I’d feel privileged even if I’d grown up in one of the less affluent areas, where the homes were cramped with stingy gardens and apartments stacked one on top of the other. We were living in an age where it was a privilege just to be born, and we had the Eastern Coalition and the Council of Capra to thank. I reminded myself of that whenever the restrictions threatened to erupt inside me like a volcano spewing resentment. Lately, it seemed I had to remind myself more and more.

  The view opened up again, the gardens and homes falling away into the untamed nature that stretched around the rest of the lake. The sun was already sliding off into the horizon. It was a perfect twilight hour, not a breath of wind to ripple the surface or stir the reeds along the shoreline. Giggling chatter reached me through the tangle of long grass and shrubby bushes that hugged the sandy cove.

  I hopped off my bike so I could wheel it off the path to prop against a tree. Grabbing my sling-bag from the basket, I squeezed between the bushes to the secluded cove. The main perpetrators of the giggling appeared to be Jessie and Carolyn, toe-dipping and splashing in the shallows.

  Jessie looked like a goddess, as usual. She was a natural beauty with her ebony skin and high cheekbones, glossy black curls streaming down her back. The strappy sundress she wore was a striking red that shaped her figure and teased her thighs with a ragged hem. Beside her, Carolyn was a full head shorter, paler than a winter dawn with golden blond hair chopped into a long bob. She wore a pale blue chiffon wrap over a navy bikini that was ambitious for this late in the year—the warmth of the day was rapidly slinking off with the sun.

  The other girls sat in a loose circle on the small beach and I quickly saw I was the last to arrive.

  Brenda caught sight of me trudging through the sand and waved me over. “We thought you’d forgotten all about us al
ready.”

  “As if…” I settled down beside her and delved inside my bag for the half dozen freshly baked (still warm) apple and cinnamon muffins wrapped inside a linen napkin.

  My offering joined the spread in the middle of our circle. Peanut butter cookies. Chocolate fudge brownies. Carrot cake squares lathered with cream cheese frosting. Mini pumpkin pies. Corked bottles of lemonade and iced tea. We were St. Ives girls, after all. This picnic wouldn’t be our last hooray! without a tasty bake-off.

  Lisa reached in to grab a bottle of lemonade and drummed her fingernails on the glass. “Now that everyone’s here, a toast,” she called out, bringing Jessie and Carolyn in from the water’s edge. “To us, to graduation tomorrow…”

  Jessie dropped to her knees behind me and flung her arms over my shoulders. “Boring,” she whispered in my ear.

  “Hey.” I threw out a grin as I shook her off my shoulders and scooted over to make place between me and Brenda.

  Lisa took a swig from the bottle, then held it out as she cast a smile around our circle. “Watch out, the St. Ives girls are coming.”

  I rolled my eyes, and imagined Jessie doing the same at my back, but we both joined in with the general laughter and hoots. The bottle was passed around with more toasts. No more school. No more etiquette classes. No more uniforms.

  When it was Jessie’s turn, she tipped the bottle at me and said with a wink, “To the future Mrs. Daniel Edgar.”

  “Jessie!” I gasped, heat spreading to my cheeks. I might like to think Daniel Edgar was already mine, but I’d never dare to claim him publicly. “You can’t just say things like that.”

  “What?” She blinked innocently. “Anyone with eyes can see that boy is smitten with you.”

  There were some oohs and aahs from the other girls, and a frosty silence from Lisa’s crew.

  “Yeah, well,” Lisa said dismissively, flicking her ponytail to one side, “back here in the real world, guys like Daniel Edgar don’t get smitten. They play games until it’s time to settle down, then they choose wisely.”

  “Since when are you the expert on boys?” snorted Brenda.

  “Since I have an older brother.”

  “I have three older brothers and most of the time, they don’t even know what they’re doing or thinking.”

  Jessie giggled. “Atta girl.”

  This argument was bordering on ridiculous and made my skin creep with awkwardness. I grabbed the bottle from Jessie and raised it toward the center of our group. “Here’s to the future Mrs. Daniel Edgar, whomever she may be. We can’t presume to know who he’ll choose or why, but I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

  Lisa wasn’t ready to back down. She was a tall girl with long blond hair and blue eyes that cooled considerably as her gaze hooked mine. “I didn’t want to have to say this out loud, Georga, but it would be cruel to let you get your hopes up. Daniel Edgar will choose bloodlines and yours just isn’t up to scratch.”

  Beside me, Jessie hissed.

  Brenda shot to her feet.

  I put my arms out, signaling them both to back off. This fight had just turned very personal. Lisa’s father was the head guard, a position ranked a good couple of notches above my father’s, who managed the Utilities Infrastructure. But that kind of thing only mattered for the boys, when it came to job assignments and determining their career paths. For us girls, it was completely irrelevant.

  I took a step closer to Lisa, folded my arms. “We’re all from the Legislative District. We will all graduate from St. Ives. We’re the sum of our score cards and that’s all. It’s sad, really, if you think your family name gives you some advantage over the rest of us.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I wasn’t talking about that. You’re from a single-child home, Georga. I’m a full house.”

  Full house. She was referring to her brother and twin sisters. Every married couple was allotted four eggs. As much as the Eastern Coalition wished to grow our population, there wasn’t an endless supply of frozen eggs. Four chances for four children. If any attempt failed, that was one of your chances gone.

  My eyes never strayed from Lisa’s hard, cold gaze. I didn’t blink. “That doesn’t factor into our scores and with good reason. We don’t share any genetics with our mothers.”

  Lisa shrugged. “That all sounds great on paper, but it’s not what a guy’s thinking when he sees a big family.”

  “Ignore her,” Brenda said. “She’s just jealous.”

  Jessie tugged on my arm and I let her pull me away. Before I said something that couldn’t be unsaid.

  “Karma’s a bitch,” Brenda muttered as we put some distance between us and them and plonked ourselves down on a grassy patch where the beach met scrubby field. “If she’s not careful, it’ll come back to bite her on the ass.”

  That was exactly the kind of dark path I hadn’t wanted to go down. “I don’t wish that on anyone.”

  There were enough ways already for it to go wrong. We’d learnt in Maternal Science that the IVF process had been refined over the years and currently the success rate was a staggering 80%, but that still left a 20% chance that you just got unlucky with one of your four allocated eggs. Miscarriage was far more disastrous. After I’d come along, my mom had suffered a miscarriage in her first trimester and that was it. The doctors wouldn’t risk wasting two further eggs on a hostile womb.

  Jessie nudged me and said, “What Lisa said was a load of crap. Daniel’s mother is also an only child and that didn’t stop Julian Edgar from choosing her.”

  “Whatever,” I murmured, glancing from her to Brenda. “I mean, yeah, Daniel Edgar is super eligible and he’s very good looking, but he has this way about him…” I looked to Jessie again, not sure how to explain. “He makes me feel special, like he’s really interested in me and not just my scorecard. If that’s not real, if he chooses someone else for whatever reason…”

  Well, then, it would be a disappointment, especially for the Sisters of Capra, but maybe it would be a lucky escape for me. I’d hardly had much time with Daniel and I already liked him, really liked him. If he could be so easily swayed by factors other than what he’d already seen and knew about me, then it would be better, surely, to start my marriage fresh with a stranger than to be handicapped by these growing feelings for a boy who didn’t share them.

  I shrugged, sighing, “If that’s not real, then maybe I’m better off with some other guy that I don’t expect anything from.”

  “That sounds about right,” Jenna chimed in, catching the tail end of our conversation as she walked over. “Set the bar as low as possible and maybe you won’t be disappointed. Mind if I join you?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I glanced around, noted the girls had all drifted apart into their natural groups. Jenna Simmons didn’t have any close friends, she’d never made an effort to fit in, but she was never shunned either.

  Carolyn and her friends were too nice to turn anyone away.

  Lisa and her crew tolerated Jenna in short bursts—it gave them someone to parade over.

  As for me, Jessie and Brenda, well, our motives weren’t squeaky clean. Jenna Simmons fascinated us. She was like a train wreck waiting to happen. Actually, she’d already wrecked herself twice that we knew of. There was even a rumor that she’d once been handed over to The Guard for rehabilitation, but I didn’t believe that. Undergrads were never sent for rehab, they got punished at home and were marked down on their scorecards.

  Jenna sank to the ground cross-legged. “I’m not going to miss much about this place, except maybe you guys.”

  Brenda drew a smile across us all. “I’ll toast to that.”

  “Lord, no,” Jessie groaned. “We’re still recovering from the fallout of the last toast.”

  “That’s because you weren’t doing it right,” Jenna said. She produced a silver flask from the pocket of her baggy trousers with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “You have to do it with a kick.”

  I eyed the flask warily. “Is that…?”

&nb
sp; “Are you mad?” whispered Jessie. “Where on earth did you get that?”

  Brenda swatted at the flask. “Put that away.”

  “Don’t worry.” Jenna jerked her hand out of Brenda’s reach. “I’ll take the blame if we’re caught.”

  Brenda frowned at her. “You’ll take the blame because you’re the only one doing anything wrong.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Jenna unscrewed the flask and tipped it to her lips. “A life lived without any risk isn’t a life lived at all.”

  I wasn’t about to model myself after Jenna Simmons, but her words resonated with me as I watched her take a sip, watched her eyes pop a little, watched her mouth contort into a grimace. If I were going to be of any use to the Sisters of Capra, I’d have to start learning to take risks.

  I leant forward and wiggled my fingers for the flask.

  Jenna handed it over with a grin.

  Benda scowled at me. “Seriously?”

  Jessie said nothing, just watched with a sardonic expression. She probably thought I’d empty the contents out onto the grass.

  I didn’t.

  Clasping my hands around the silver flask, I darted a glance toward the other groups of girls. They weren’t paying us any attention, but it wouldn’t matter if they were. Despite the friction when we rubbed the wrong way, there was a code of honor amongst us. St. Ives girls did not rat on each other.

  Jessie’s brow quirked.

  Brenda growled beneath her breath.

  I lifted the flask to my mouth. “Here’s to us, and all the girls that came before. Here’s to tomorrow, and all the days to come.”

  I sipped and swallowed, and I was just thinking that this wasn’t too bad when fire ripped down my throat and seared my gut. I glared at Jenna through watery eyes. “What the hell is this?”

  She laughed, thoroughly amused. “White rum.”

  Moments later, the fire eased into a warm glow that coated my veins and left a taste of peaches on my tongue.

  “Actually,” I said, feeling rather mellow, “it’s not that bad.”