by Pen Clements
GREEN GIRL
by
Pen Clements
PUBLISHED BY: Coral Sea Press
Green Girl
Copyright © 2012 by Pen Clements
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Green Girl
I sang while I walked through my forest. Branches dripped with fruit and flowers and scarlet petals floated to the mossy ground. I was almost happy. If Godmother was listening, she might even have been fooled. I stopped when I reached the special place and stood like a stone, listening. Silence. No wind ever moved through these trees or caused the leaves to rustle. I pushed into the undergrowth, worming my way through tangled vines and into a green cave hidden by hanging ferns. Godmother would never find this place. Must never find it.
The ventilation shaft lay half buried behind a red cedar tree, covered by a metal plate as old and rusty as the tree’s bark. I lifted it to one side, slid into the shaft and dropped a body length to the tunnel floor. I held my breath as the metal boomed and echoed. No matter how I tried, I never could land quietly. I tiptoed along the tunnel until the grey light grew stronger and an opening loomed out of the dimness. There it was, the door to freedom. If I could just grow wings and fly.
I settled on the edge of the tunnel opening and dangled my legs into space. The sky outside was charcoal, smeared with smoking plumes of brown air. If there had been any eagles left in the world they would have seen the glass penthouse rising behind me. They would have seen the white marble sides of the apartment tower falling away below my swinging feet, down to a sagging emptiness that spread like a toxic spill to the horizon. An eagle’s eyes would have spotted the dreary, weary people trudging towards the crumbling buildings they called work, or home.
‘Anabella!’
It was her. Her thin, cold voice whispered down the metal tunnel. I sprang up and sprinted on tiptoe for the base of the shaft, wincing at every sound from my treacherous feet. I squashed my back against the vertical part of the shaft, pushed my legs against the other side and inched upwards like a worm.
‘Anabella!’
She sounded irritated now, and close. I squirmed out of the shaft, pulled the manhole cover over the hole and wriggled into the forest as far away from my special place as I could get. I grabbed a handful of scarlet berries and stepped back onto the path.
‘Godmother?’ I said.
She stood before me, dappled in shade. She was wearing white. She always wore white. Today her suit was elegant and the skirt was short enough to show off her shapely legs. They were smooth legs because Godmother had no hair, not even on her head. No eyelashes and no eyebrows, nothing to soften her glittering black eyes. I looked from her mouth to her hands. It was a red lipstick, crimson nail day. Not a good sign.
‘What were you doing?’ Godmother asked.
‘Gathering specimens. These may have interesting properties so I thought I’d try them for lunch.’ I opened my palm and held the berries towards her. Fear had made me squash them and the sap dripped through my fingers like blood.
Godmother narrowed her eyes. She’s not easy to fool.
‘It is time for you to give,’ she said. ‘The laboratory is ready.’
I stepped backwards and locked my arms behind me.
‘I don’t want to, my wrists are sore. Can’t I have a day off?’
I already knew the answer, but one day, maybe just one day, she might say yes.
‘A day off? I am running a business. How can I generate product if we have days off?’
‘It’s not ‘product’, it’s me you’re selling.’
‘Yes darling, and you’re an inexhaustible resource.’
She stroked my hair, tucking a curling green tendril behind my ear as her nails touched my cheek.
‘Now move, we have a big order to fill.’
The lab door hissed as it slid open. It was white inside, as bleached, sterile and chilled as Godmother herself. Her heels clicked on the frozen tiles. I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms.
‘Sit,’ she said.
I sat in my special chair. The black leather was moulded in the shape of my body and my arms had worn the shine off the silver wrist cuffs. I closed my eyes, blocking the sight of rows upon rows of glass jars and tubes, uniform white labels, blinking red computer displays. The needle went in and I tried not to wince. I kept my eyes shut so I wouldn’t see my green blood pulsing into the collector but I couldn’t block out the sound of the steady drip, drip.
‘What are you going to do with this batch?’ I asked. I always try and find out what she does with my blood, even when the draining crushes me with weariness. Godmother usually tells me. Sometimes I think she imagines I’m proud of what we’re doing.
‘NewCrop™ is concerned about falling profit margins. They need material that will grow on degraded soil and I’ve offered them your cells. Such abundant, fertile cells from such a bountiful girl.’
Godmother gestured towards the glass panes of the lab. Forest grew up to the windows, leaves brushed them, fruit smeared the surfaces. Trying to keep it clean was a wasted effort. Everything blossomed and ripened when I was near.
‘We should give my blood to the people outside, try and help them grow gardens themselves so they don’t have to buy from NewCrop™,’ I said.
‘Give yourself away for nothing?’ Godmother spoke with disdain. ‘You cost me a fortune and I intend to reap the benefits of my investment. You are the last of your kind and nobody is going to get their hands on you.’
She paused and her black eyes measured me.
‘Is that clear?’
It was clear. It’s always been clear, ever since she took me to the glass penthouse high above the dead city. It was barren and empty when I first got here but over the years it’s flourished and sprouted and now it teems with ripe, riotous life. The once-white carpets are lush and matted with moss, reeds and sedges. Trees brush and bend against the glass walls, threatening to break free and spill down the tower. Sometimes I press my palms flat against the windows. When I was little I wanted to hold back the poisoned world outside but lately my feelings had changed. Now I wanted to find my way towards it.
I dreamed of the places of my barely remembered childhood, the clear streams bordered by tall trees, the tribe of people just like me. I spread my hands and looked at my green fingertips, then touched the tiny white blossoms growing in my hair. Godmother said my people were all gone now. They were destroyed when everything ended and the survivors were swallowed up in cities and plantations, where nothing was tangled, where everything grew in rows.
I don’t dwell on sad things. I’d given my bloody sap and Godmother would leave me alone until the next time. Right now she would be centrifuging, titrating, analysing and all the other things she loved to do in her glacial workplace, tapping her frosty fingers and revelling in the cold.
I went back to the manhole and out along the shaft. Lately I had been unable to keep away, unable to stop myself from leaning over the void and searching the world outside. What for, I didn’t know.
I lay on my stomach this time and peered down to the shadowy lands below. I wished I could see other people, look into their faces and speak with them. But they were so small, so far, far away. The white tower block shone and its surface glowed like a beacon in the toxic air. People had lived on the floors below me once but now the rooms were empty and the stairwells were blocked long ago. There was no way down, Godmother had seen to that. I reached out over the lip of the ve
ntilation shaft and ran my fingers along the gleaming marble sides. I stopped. My fingers touched something down under the rim where I couldn’t see. Something warm. There was something there, where there had never been anything before. I took a deep breath and wriggled further out over the ledge, not looking at the drop, stretching my fingers and straining my arms. Something squeezed me.
I jerked back in panic but the grip was strong. A rushing noise filled the air and a face floated up, a dark haired, golden skinned face. It was framed by wings.
‘What are you?’ I asked. I was so overwhelmed with curiosity that I forgot to be afraid.
‘A man,’ he said. His gaze was steady and open.
‘Men don’t have wings. Even I know that. Especially not those kind of wings. Only butterflies have wings like that.’
‘I’m a very special man. Just like you’re a very special girl.’
‘And how do you know that?’
I may be sheltered but years of living with Godmother keeps me on my toes.
‘I’ve watched you through the windows. I’ve been waiting for you to find the shaft. I’ve wanted to talk to you for a very long time.’
I didn’t answer him. I was wondering if my loneliness had wished this man out of the air, complete with his soft wings, the only kind of man who could ever reach me here. He was like something out of a dream except his fingers were warm and strong and his dark shining eyes were more real than anything I’d ever