Land of Masks and Moonlight (Glimpsing Stars, #2)

by S. K. Falls

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Two more days pass by in a blink. In New Amana, time appeared to race or crawl, depending on the events in my life. But here it is ephemeral and gauzy no matter what; it slips between my fingers when I'm not looking.

  Ceres and I work close together in the floods of the paddy fields, the wind chapping our faces and lips and hands in spite of the protective clothing we wear. With every ounce of weight that the baby gains—and it seems to be gaining by the hour—it feels like my feet take the brunt of it. My heels burn with the effort of standing upright, my back groans and cracks. I am not sure why I feel so much pain; everyone who knows assures me that my pregnancy is not visible.

  I keep waiting for the hammer to fall, for them to announce that the fugitive cell they've captured has given away more information about me. I imagine them dragging me off in front of everyone right after the national anthem, my feet scrabbling uselessly on the dirt. But it does not happen. The number of fugitives on the board does not go up.

  Still, I am uneasy. The Monitors’ gazes follow me like dark, lingering shadows. As the hours slip by, my apprehension and almost intolerable need to provide a safe shelter for the baby and Ceres grow tenfold.

  On the way back to our wopung on the Saturday before we are to meet with Elara, I resolve to tell Shale we have to move forward on our own. Our meeting with her isn't for two more days, but surely someone else should have some information. Maybe we can find something out from Trigger or Ananke. I cannot explain why now, but I feel as though I cannot wait a single second longer—let alone another forty-eight hours—to find out if and when we can move to the other compound.

  When Shale knocks on the door to our wopung, I rush to open it. He peeks in at Ceres and smiles. Then, his face serious, he looks back at me. "Do you have a moment to speak?"

  "Of course." I step outside into the cold night air and shut the door behind me. "What's happened?"

  "I know you've been anxious to find out when we can move." But how does he know? I didn't think my growing desperation was visible to anyone. In spite of myself, I'm pleased at the thought of Shale watching me, of him being in tune with my needs. "We might have a chance tonight. Ananke's invited us to a rooftop get-together at eight."

  "What about Ceres?"

  "It's up to you if you want to bring her. I thought perhaps she could stay behind. We can return right after the TV programming."

  I nod. "All right. I'll meet you at your house later."

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  But Ceres will not hear of staying behind. I suspect she thinks the get-together is an official one, sanctioned by Monitors Wang and Ng of the training sessions. I try to tell her it will be boring and most likely too cold—I don’t want to risk telling her too much—but she won't hear of it. So, at ten till eight, I clutch her hand and we walk to Shale's wopung. The wind rushes at us as we walk, but I barely notice the cold. A frenzy of electric energy dances inside me at the thought of what we might find out tonight.

  “Halt!”

  I freeze at the command, called out from behind us. Still holding Ceres’s hand, I turn around slowly to find Monitor Ng approaching us, her beautiful eyes narrowed in suspicion. I let go of Ceres’ hand, though I hate to do it. She watches Monitor Ng innocently, not realizing that this get-together is a secret. That we could die if the Monitor before us figures it out. A memory of the woman lying unconscious on the road while Monitor Ng dumped a bucket of water on her flashes through my mind. I hope fervently that Ceres will be quiet and let me do the talking.

  Monitor Ng comes to a stop before us. She is a few inches taller than me, and at this distance, I have to tip my head back to look at her. She smiles a little. “Why are you not inside? The Laws will be read in just”—she consults a slim gold wristwatch—“seven minutes.”

  Ceres shifts in my peripheral vision, no doubt wondering why Monitor Ng doesn’t know where we’re headed. “We are going to our friend’s wopung. Her son is ill, so she would like us to help. We will watch the Laws there, on her TV set.”

  The Monitor stares into my eyes a long moment, as if attempting to divine if I am telling the truth. Then she looks at Ceres and smiles wider. “I see. Is this true?”

  “Y-yes,” Ceres replies. She gazes steadily into Monitor Ng’s eyes. Her answer is simple and forthright. I marvel at her ability to lie so well, so effortlessly. I had no idea she had it in her. Unsettling as it is, her untruth works in our favor.

  Monitor Ng takes a small step back. “Hurry. You don’t want to miss any of it.”

  I dip my head in deference, and we hasten to Shale’s wopung. I squeeze Ceres’s hand when I am sure the Monitor can’t hear us. “Thank you. I know that must’ve been hard, for you to lie that way.”

  She gazes at me with utter transparency. “You n-needed me...to.”

  I kiss the side of her head, overcome with the unquestioning purity of her love for me.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When we knock on the door, Shale answers, and we walk to the get-together as a group of three.

  "Is there a reason behind tonight’s socialization?" I ask Shale. I don’t bother telling him that we were stopped by Monitor Ng. It will worry him needlessly.

  "They do this about once a month," Shale replies. "It's a chance for the core group of Rads on this compound to check in, exchange any new information, and relax a bit. Aiguo and some of the other Monitors are willing to look the other way for a half hour, and in exchange for payment, they even keep away the Monitors who aren’t sympathetic to our situation. Ananke says it keeps things from getting too lonely. We're in a strange land after all."

  I suppose he's right. I know that danger is on our trail and our safety here is short-lived, but having a physically demanding occupation has kept me from lying awake all night as I might've done in New Amana. There's also a sense of comfort in knowing that your enemies are not from your own hometown, that they belong neatly in the category of “other.” We expect to be let down by people we do not know, who have no commitment to helping us. There’s no sense of betrayal when the wolf you see skulking on the horizon turns out to have sharp teeth. The worst kind of deception comes from the wolf you didn’t even know resided amongst you; when you turn around and your most precious lamb has been stolen. I gaze at Ceres—relatively whole and happy before me—as a picture of my mother flashes through my mind.

  We pass through the iron gate after Shale tells the Monitor the code word, and arrive at the same building where we have our socialization events after training sessions. Shale holds open the door and we walk inside and up the rusty staircase. As we wind our way higher, the cool breeze whipping our clothes against us, I hear men's and women’s voices raised in laughter. Ceres walks faster as if the sound is a thread, pulling her forward. We open the door at the top of the staircase and step through to the windy roof.

  A couple of lit lanterns dot the floor, so while it is not especially warm, it is just bright enough to see. A man standing by the door hands us extra blankets and hats as we walk in. Gratefully, I wrap one around myself and then help Ceres with hers. Shale stands by me, close enough so I can feel his body heat, but not nearly as close as I’d like.

  I look around at everyone’s smiling faces. In spite of the icy wind, they look content to be here on this chilly rooftop in the middle of rural China.

  "You're here!"

  Shale and I turn toward the high-pitched voice. It's Ananke, bounding toward us, her pretty, large eyes shining in the firelight. She is quite beautiful, I realize—again—with a pang, especially when compared with me. I am swelling slowly, thanks to the fluids I'm retaining from the pregnancy. Ananke is as lithe and small as ever, her perky nature not in the least daunted by the cold.

  "Glad you were able to come, too, Vika.” Though her smile doesn't dim visibly, I can't help but feel that she isn't as happy to see me as she pretends.

  "Thank you for the invitation," I reply. "Shale says this is a regular event."

  "Yes,
" she replies. "They do it monthly. Although, of course, this is my first time as well. I've just been filled in on everything, living as I do with Benkoela."

  " Trigger's mate," Shale tells me. "Ananke and she are roommates here."

  We mill around, meeting other people. I'm introduced as Kalliope, and I assume the others give me their new names as well. I know we are here to find out more information about leaving the compound. Even so, being here is healing in a way I didn’t expect. Although everything about us is borrowed—our names, our IDs, even our gray wool clothes—this is the realest I've felt in a long time.

  My feet begin to ache after a while, and, excusing myself from the small circle Shale and I have drifted to, I find a chair along the edge of the roof to drink in the view as I am not able to do at our socialization events. I feel watched at those events, the eyes of the Monitors like lead weights on my skin. But now with the buzz of conversation and the swell and fall of laughter, I relax. The view is amazing, even though this building is not nearly as tall as the one in which I lived back home in Ursa. The beauty here is natural, no nuclear pollution marring it.

  With the stars shining down from an onyx sky and a yellow-tinged moon above, I can truly appreciate the incredible vastness of the plains, of the way the foggy mountains border them like soldiers. I take in the expanse of paddy fields, the water rippling when the wind rushes across, like a big hand smearing the clear surface. The air here is clear and cool and fresh, and my nose does not sting or bleed as it did in New Amana.

  "Mind if I join you?"

  I turn and see Trigger smiling down at me with a tin cup in his hand. "Not at all."

  He takes the empty chair next to me and takes a swig of his drink. "Hot whiskey," he says. "Warm you right up. I could bring you a cup?"

  "No, thank you.” I'm not sure if Trigger knows that I'm still pregnant, but I don't chance telling him. We might've left New Amana behind, but we are still safest as self-contained units, thanks to the ghosts of our pasts.

  We sit in silence, watching the moving water down below, where tomorrow we'll return to tend to the land and fish. But tonight we watch in wonder, the absolute magic of being alive, of being here, enveloping us.

  Finally Trigger breaks the silence. "He's a good man, Shale."

  I gather my blanket in closer around my shoulders. "Yes. I owe him my life."

  Trigger shifts in my peripheral vision, but I keep my eyes trained on the plains. I sense that he needs a moment to collect his thoughts, to say what he intends to say. In a soft voice, he continues."He says the same about you."

  I look at him then, in surprise. "Shale owes me nothing. I ran when he..." I stop when my voice shakes. "When he was shot."

  "That may be, but he doesn't hold it against you. You did what you had to do. It wasn't just you you had to protect, was it?"

  I don't say anything.

  He continues after a deep sip of his hot whiskey. "Our group found him in the desert, bleeding out. He'd been there hours, completely dehydrated, on the verge of death." He shakes his head. "Ananke nursed him back to life."

  "Then it's clear it's her he owes his life to." I don't intend for my words to come out sharply, but they do. The thought of Shale on the brink of death because of me, being helped back to life by Ananke—it's almost too much to bear. I am torn between a bitter sense of loss that I wasn't there for him and a deep sense of gratitude that she was.

  "She might've been administerin’ the medicine, but you were the one he held onto to get back here from wherever he'd gone." Trigger turns to me, his eyes bright from drink and the point he's trying to make. "We saw a lot of casualties in our group, Ananke and me. We were the other Rad group, y’know, the one working in tandem with yours. We freed the little ones from the Asylums; saw Shale on our way there. Ananke and one or two others split off and took him back to the medical tents. I didn’t want her to, let me tell you. I took one look at him and..." He shakes his head. "I told her, said it wasn’t worth bringing him to the tents. He'd use up supplies and die anyway. I was ready to put a bullet in his head, put him out of his suffering. It's sort of my specialty; reason behind the name."

  My fists ball up, anger searing through me at his words. I force myself to stay calm, to not react. "But you didn't."

  "No. Ananke wouldn't let me. She's got a soft side for him." He stares at me until I meet his eye. "I know that's hard to hear. I can see what he means to you anytime you're standing together. But it's one sided, what she feels. Ananke knows it, too. The whole time he was feverish, barely hanging on by a thread, all he kept talking about was you."

  My mouth feels wooden. "What?"

  "Kept talking about how he had to go to you, protect you and the like." He speaks the words slowly, as if the speed at which he conveys this information is inconsequential; like I don't want to pick out every word, every memory of the event from his brain. "He made a record recovery. Ananke said it was his desire to see you again. The mind's a strong thing; if it wants you to survive, you can bet you will." Trigger drains his drink.

  "But he..." I stop, overcome. I don't know where to begin, how to ask the million questions that are bombarding my mind. "How did he find me?"

  "When he recovered enough so he was awake for longer and longer, he began asking questions. Kept asking us about ‘the girl.’ Where was the girl, he wanted to know. We told him we didn’t have a clue, but then he started to say your name. ‘Vika Cannon’—that got our attention, all right. We knew who your mother was. We were keeping track of you, just in case you got your loyalties mixed up.” He glances at me to assess my reaction. I bristle at his insinuation, that I might’ve betrayed them simply because of who my mother was, but I nod so he’ll continue. “We got some intelligence that said you were at the refugee camp. And the captain of the ship you boarded, Captain Jerome, was one of our Sympathetics. He confirmed that he’d take you on board. Apparently Shale insisted, said he wanted to be on the ship too. Ananke wanted him to wait for the next one, make sure he was a little more stable for the journey. But he wouldn't hear of it, said he’d be fine.” Trigger shrugs. “He was right, I suppose. He seems to be recoverin’ all right. Having something to live for will do that to you."

  I shake my head slowly. Is Trigger talking about me? Am I what Shale has to live for? But then...why does he insist on not picking up where we left off? If he truly felt that deeply about us, wouldn’t he insist on being together, no matter how guilty he felt?

  "You're mistaken," I find myself saying. "Shale...he doesn’t want to be with me. He’s made that clear." The wound inside me yawns open at saying the words out loud.

  Trigger smiles a little. "Shale hates himself for abandoning you. He's angry at himself, at his weakness, for not being there for you. The man brought himself back from the dead for you, Vika. Don’t let him go so easily." He stands up and pats me briefly on the shoulder. "Well, I better go see Benkoela now before she starts in on me about spendin’ too much time with a pretty lady.” He winks. “I insisted she go to China two months before me, as soon as they had a spot for her.” He chuckles lightly. “She’ll never let me hear the end of it. I'll be seein’ you two in a couple of days." He pauses. "We're lucky to be with the ones who love us. I hope you remember that."

  He walks away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I look past the parcels of sodden fields at the hazy river on the horizon, the icy breeze turning my nose and cheeks numb. It is absolutely gorgeous, the Yangtze river, bordered on two sides by gargantuan, greenery-covered mountains. They hulk in the distance, steeped in mist, like sleeping beasts guarding their water. I wonder what it'd be like to live here forever, to carve out a life somewhere safe with Shale and Ceres and the baby. Would we eventually forget the things we've had to go through? Would the gunshot wounds and the Asylum all just fade into the mist?

  I stand and turn around, surveying the people scattered across the roof like marbles, talking in low voices, the firelight reflecting in their eyes. Shale
stands in a corner, his head bowed down as he speaks earnestly to Ananke. They'd make a sweet couple, I realize. They're well-suited for each other. I can see in his gestures that he has an easy friendship with her. That time she spent taking care of him bonded them, as hardships tend to do with people. It is something they will always share. And perhaps she will always be in love with him. Do I dare tell him I refuse to take no for an answer, that I know we’re meant to be together? Do I dare ask if what Trigger said is true? That he thought of me, of my face, to bring him back from the brink?

  I take a step closer to them and another. Then I stop. I can't. I simply can't go there and ask him those questions. Doubt, ugly and fetid, envelops me in its stinking breath. What if Trigger is utterly mistaken? What if Shale’s love has faded since he got injured? What if, on our journey here, he decided things have changed?

  I can't do it. I take a step back.

  At that moment, Shale looks up. Flickering shadows from the lanterns play across his smooth face, and his black hair seems shot through with copper in the firelight. I stare at him, entranced. His eyes still on me, he says something to Ananke, who nods and walks away. Then he begins to walk toward me, his gait sure, his face concerned. He reaches out as if to grab me by the shoulder, and then stops. His hand falls back to his side. "Are you all right?"

  I watch the crease between his eyebrows, that small frown. Everything feels like it's a movie from my grandmother’s time, like it can't possibly be happening here. "I think...I need to sit."

  Shale does grab me around the shoulders then, and guides me back to the chair. He stands by the one Trigger had occupied just moments ago. "I’ll get you some water."

  "No." I reach out and grab his wrist, the strong bones there digging into the flesh of my palm. When I look at him, I see his face framed by the shimmer of my tears. "You almost died." My voice breaks on the word.