Twig

by wildbow

  “So you are my daughter after all. The perfectionist.”

  She felt uncomfortable at the idea, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “I have more questions,” he said. “About what happened at Mothmont. Just what you’ve been up to.”

  “They may have to wait. If I can even answer them at all.”

  He nodded.

  “But for now? I really do have a job to do. And speed is of the essence. I’m going to go.”

  “If I stayed in town, could I see you again?”

  “If you’re in town when the Infante arrives, you may find that the roads are closed and security redoubled,” Mary said. “You should go soon. I’ll see you later this year.”

  He somehow didn’t seem very hurt by the bluntness. It could have been that he valued being taken into confidence. It could have been that he had largely come to terms with the distance between them.

  Clinically, she could tell that his eyes were sad, his smile genuine at the same time.

  “I don’t need to worry about you and Lillian?”

  “She’ll run the Academy, and I’ll handle the military arm,” Mary said. “She has that boy she likes, and I… just need time.”

  Time being the integral component. This dream might have been feasible, if only barely, but time was the thing she needed most, with more time giving her more room to accomplish it. She would expire, sooner or later.

  “It’s not what I envisioned, when I held you in my arms,” he said.

  Again, Mary didn’t have a response for that.

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice soft.

  They did need help. They needed contacts and resources. Maybe all of the discomfort and distraction involved with maintaining this family would prove useful. Maybe.

  “Hood up,” he said. “Don’t get too wet. Unless you want my umbrella?”

  She shook her head, reaching up to lift her hood back into place.

  They parted ways.

  You deserve a better daughter, Mary thought. Not a ghost. Not an offshoot.

  The line of thought about the teaching and training soldiers stuck with her. It kept her company alongside less comfortable, easy thoughts that lingered from the conversation.

  She had been happy to exist, to keep people she valued close. She honed her skills and proved her worth and she was content in that.

  At the same time, she had avoided thinking of the future, until pressed to paint one for her father.

  It all would have been easier if she had ignored the man. She might have, if the image of her counterpart didn’t nag at her, if her original self was dead five years ago, reduced to nothing and boiled away in a vat, instead of mere months ago, keeping company with nobles.

  She valued how she was evaluated, liked being the best Mary she could be. Seemingly effortlessly, someone else had surpassed her in that.

  Yet talking to her father was supposed to fix that? She didn’t like the way that idea rested in her head.

  Lillian was supposed to be back at their temporary accommodations, stealing a nap before the Infante came. There were things to be discussed and considered before then. Mary would get the answer as to why Lillian wanted to wait instead of seizing the most political capital possible.

  She felt restless.

  The building was quiet, its other occupants out for the day, or at least entertaining themselves with books rather than music boxes and conversation. Many refugees of higher standing had been allowed into the town, and many places were crowded, but this building had avoided the worst of it.

  She unlocked the door and let herself in, looked at Lillian sleeping on the bed with a towel around her head. Mary used every trick at her disposal to minimize noise.

  The bathwater was still lukewarm, so she made use of it.

  She wanted sleep more than she wanted anything else, so she was efficient. She peeled off her clothes, damp even though she had been adequately protected by her raincoat.

  Her fingers brushed over a hundred tiny scars, a dozen less tiny ones, and a half-dozen clusters or longer scars where she had been opened up. Brown and black smudges grew here and there, or formed hard nodules.

  She was a copy of another person, and she had spent the first few years of her life in a vat. She had hit the ground running, growth-wise, development-wise, and even as her growth had been stopped, her body maintained a different clock, and her development had taken a fresh direction, with an overwhelming and eager focus on her training.

  But cells copied themselves over and over again, and the combination of that reality and the odd clock she kept, with the copying of copying, it meant things were running aground, flaws finding reality.

  There were times and places where her hands didn’t move quite the way she wanted, or where muscles caught. She was careful to tell Lillian about each of them, and with Lillian’s care she was allowed to pursue her perfection again.

  Lillian’s soap and toiletries rested on the bath’s edge. On impulse, she left them alone, choosing the coarse lye soap instead. She scrubbed herself until her skin was pink and tingling, then rinsed herself off.

  She dressed light, so she wouldn’t rumple her clothes. She would want to look good when the Infante arrived.

  Lillian looked so tired, even in sleep.

  The black coat remained the goal, it had to be. But this job and jobs like it, they felt like small steps. They needed to accomplish something more.

  They needed to not wait when they had answers others wanted. Not when time was so elusive.

  Mary took a moment to tie her hair back with her ribbons, then climbed onto the bed. She remained there, poised, on her hands and knees above Lillian.

  Gently, she lifted Lillian’s hands, moving them out of the way. Then she leaned down, touching her lips to her friend’s.

  Soft, almost imperceptible.

  Lillian reacted, exhaling softly, and Mary moved the towel to cover Lillian’s eyes as she made the kiss more perceptible, momentary touches instead of feather light ones.

  Lillian, more awake, raised her head up, reaching, and Mary met that response with something substantial, then a touch of tongue.

  It was about drawing it out. A quarter of the way, each time. Then as Lillian responded more, halfway each time.

  Lillian arched her back, reaching up with her whole body, while her wrists were held down.

  The progression, logically, meant the next step was a three-quarter one. Body to body. Instead of this, Mary moved her knee, placing it on the bed between Lillian’s legs, firmly, insistently pressing. She could feel Lillian change the angle of her hips.

  A part of her liked getting this right. Like managing the perfect maneuver with the knife and wire, precise acrobatics. It made her think of being in lockstep with Gordon, Helen, or Sylvester.

  Lillian made the most delicate of moans, and that response merited another three-quarter-of-the-way-there response. A kiss, a tightening of her grip on Lillian’s wrists.

  In the midst of it all, the moment passed. A change in the responses that each action got. In the immersion she was maintaining.

  Mary let go, and sat back.

  Lillian reached up, taking hold of the damp towel that had been draped over her upper face, and pulled it down, clutching it to her chest.

  “What gave me away this time?” Mary asked.

  Lillian shook her head. She was breathing hard, and she didn’t speak immediately.

  Mary let herself topple over, lying on the bed to one side. While she lay there, Lillian took her hand, fingers traveling over Mary’s fingers. Fingertips traced calluses. From handling knives and razor wire.

  “They’re not his hand,” Lillian said. Her voice was soft enough it crackled a little bit. She sounded sad.

  “Ah,” Mary said. “I can do something about that.”

  As she looked over at Lillian, however, she could see that her friend’s eyes were sad.

 
; “Unless you want me to stop.”

  Lillian shook her head, but she didn’t look sure.

  “You look so sad, after,” Mary said.

  “It’s nice to believe it, just for a few moments,” Lillian said. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Maybe I’m not letting it be a clean break.”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said.

  “I’m so twisted,” Lillian said. “The Lambs are all twisted around, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not the one to answer that, one way or the other,” Mary said. “It’s more or less all I’ve ever known.”

  Still holding Mary’s hand, Lillian knit the fingers of their hand together, staring at the hands, which were held up as they lay there.

  They remained like that for several minutes.

  “I don’t want to bore you,” Lillian finally said. “Or for you to think less of me.”

  “I’d never think less of you, not for something like this. And I like the challenge. Seeing how close I can get,” Mary said. “But if you want to talk about irritating me… why did we wait?”

  “I knew you were going to ask.”

  Mary sat up, abrupt. “I want us to progress.”

  “This is progress,” Lillian said. “This is choosing our time to make a move with some wisdom.”

  “You’re cautious,” Mary pointed out. “You need to make bold moves.”

  “It’s not that. I knew almost right away that I’d need to wait a measured time. I saw dirt patterns almost right away too, but still, no, if we act too soon, it’ll seem uppity, like we’re showing them up.”

  “They don’t like you, or us,” Mary said. “However you do it, they won’t like it. All we’re doing by waiting is giving them the chance to find out the answer first.”

  “With the track they’re on?” Lillian asked. She shook her head. “No, no. This is right. They won’t admit they’re impressed, but it gets us the most traction. It’ll count for something.”

  “I’d rather finish sooner,” Mary said. “Move on to something more meaningful.”

  Lillian huffed out a sigh. There was some residual frustration in that huff.

  “What?” Mary asked.

  “And a part of me doesn’t want to say no, to people who want someplace safe to go,” Lillian admitted. “I don’t want to be that kind of doctor. I want to offer a better solution.”

  Mary nodded. She let herself fall back down, collapsing onto the pillow.

  “I know, logically, it makes more sense to gain power so I can help people… but I wonder how many tell themselves that,” Lillian said.

  “I was thinking about that, as a matter of fact,” Mary said. “About where we’re going. What we might do, if there’s time.”

  Lillian turned her head.

  Before she could respond, however, a knock rapped at the door. Lillian jumped as she heard it, then sat up partway up as she recognized the pattern.

  Tap code.

  Lamb.

  Mary reached over to the bedside table, and she drew her gun. She had one knife under a pillow, and as she reached for that, Lillian slapped at her hand.

  She would make do with the gun.

  “Come in,” Mary said.

  The door opened. Jessie. She wore a raincoat and a long skirt, and she’d chosen not to wear her glasses. It wasn’t until she lowered her hood and moved her braid into place at one shoulder that she looked more like herself. She drew glasses from her pocket and set them in place.

  “Did something happen?” Lillian asked. Mary didn’t miss seeing how Lillian unconsciously clutched at the sheets as she asked.

  Jessie shook her head.

  Then, with an entirely different kind of tension and fear, Lillian asked, “Did you hear?”

  “Not so much. I… surmised,” Jessie said.

  While Lillian flushed, Mary stepped in to rescue her. “Why are you here?”

  “We want to gather the Lambs,” Jessie said. “We’re pulling everyone together.”

  “Why?” Mary asked.

  Something about the look in Jessie’s eye was answer enough.

  The desperation, the anger. Mary had seen that on too many faces recently. Jessie, at least, wasn’t re-enacting the desperation and anger that the man standing outside the wall had.

  “The situation outside the gates is most of the answer, isn’t it?” Jessie asked. “You know who’s really behind it. We need to answer that. Someone does.”

  “There’s a lot of people responsible,” Lillian said. “It’s too big a problem to tackle.”

  “We’re in the middle of something big. And we’re drawing a lot of people in,” Jessie said.

  Lillian pursed her lips.

  “And you won’t tell us more in case we don’t say yes,” Mary said.

  Jessie shook her head. “You didn’t become a Doctor to be complicit in that, Lillian. I don’t think you became a Lamb to be complicit in it. You wouldn’t have killed Percy one of the first times I met you, if you were willing to let this slide. And don’t tell me if we’re patient that this will get better. Because it isn’t getting better.”

  Jessie’s tone was changing as she spoke. That anger was there again. It wasn’t really borne of empathy, though if Jessie resembled Jamie at all, she did have her share of empathy to spare.

  No, it was an anger borne of a refrain. Not enough time. Repeated endlessly with periodic variation, as if enough insistence and the occasional variation could somehow break through and achieve the desired effect.

  Mary had experienced some of that. Something like it had spurred her to act and reach out to Lillian.

  “I don’t—” Lillian started. “Sy couldn’t come himself?”

  “It didn’t work out that way,” Jessie said. “Logistically. We thought staying behind and keeping an eye on things would be hard… and he wanted to endure it himself.”

  “Because he’s a moron,” Lillian said.

  “There really was no good way to do this. There’s no good way to move forward with our plan unless we have the Lambs all together.”

  Lillian started to say something, and then she stopped.

  Mary felt a sense of dread. The current situation, the stall in the forward momentum, as they made the leap from getting Lillian’s white coat to getting the harder to define grey one. The refugees outside the wall. The Infante, and the problems there.

  Missing Sylvester. Missing the Lambs being together.

  Lillian couldn’t give a firm answer because she didn’t have one. If anything, Lillian was giving it serious thought.

  Mary’s thoughts touched on her supposed father, inexplicably. They touched on the idea he had helped her conjure up, of teaching soldiers. Of wanting time, which the Academy could provide more than anyone else.

  “What if I say no?” Mary asked.

  Lillian looked at her, and Mary knew in the moment that they stood on different sides of the decision.

  “Or if I need time to think about it?” Mary amended.

  “There’s no time,” Jessie said. “The Infante is coming. You said it yourself, when you were talking to Mr. Cobourn, security will increase, roads will be closed.”

  “We’ll manage,” Mary said. “But don’t pull the oldest trick in the con artist’s book, and choose to have this meeting here, now, when there’s a time limit, and force a decision.”

  “That’s not how I operate. It just happened that way,” Jessie said.

  “I agree with Mary,” Lillian said. “I need time, too. You’re asking me to put so many things behind me. You know how hard I worked for my white coat.”

  “I know,” Jessie said. “But if we wait for the Infante, the city will lock down. It means we aren’t meeting with Sy for a few more days, at a minimum, and that’s a lot to ask. It means added danger. At the very least, come out of the city with me. We won’t be here, and that’s easier to explain away if you decide not to go.”

  Lillian clutched the sheets again. “No, Jessie. Whatever you and Sy and Hele
n are brewing, you can’t just not be in touch for months on end and then suddenly show up and expect us to leave everything behind.”

  “We were in touch. We sent you a letter from Hackthorn.”

  Lillian stopped in her tracks at that.

  “Ah,” she said. “I wondered about someone like her wanting to make Lambs. I thought it would be a mockery, all appearances.”

  Jessie shook her head.

  “We’re in touch with the Duke,” Lillian said. “We’re situating ourselves to help him stop what’s going on. We’d be leaving him stranded.”

  “We’ll rope him in too,” Jessie said.

  “No,” Lillian said. “It’s not that easy. There’s Ashton and Duncan, and they’re complicated too. I’m just worried if we do this badly, it’ll divide the Lambs again.”

  “It sounds like you’re trying to find a reason to say no and it doesn’t sound like you’re convinced by any of them,” Jessie said.

  “I have a thousand not-entirely-convincing reasons!” Lillian said, raising her voice. “Everything I’ve done here has been not very convincing. But it’s not like Sylvester offers better. What you’re describing sounds terrifying.”

  “What we need is terrifying,” Jessie said, and she said it in the calmest voice. One that suggested that the anger and fear and the need for time were all answered in those five words.

  And those five words spoke to something in Lillian too. As much as she’d managed to fling herself into the ‘no’ side of things, she found herself straddling the fence.

  Mary, not quite straddling that fence, moved her hand, situating the gun on her knee.

  Jessie met her eye.

  “We’ll need time to discuss,” Mary said. “Go. Please. We’ll find you.”

  “And if I don’t move?” Jessie asked.

  Will I find that passion and strength and desperation, as my body gives up on me? Mary wondered. Maybe we’ll see.

  She pulled the trigger, and as the room rang with the sound of the handgun firing, Jessie dropped to the floor, blood painting the door beside her. Lillian’s yelp and her voice shouting into the midst of the ringing didn’t help matters.

  Before Lillian was out of bed and all the way to her, however, Jessie was standing, one hand at the graze on her thigh.