The Glass Arrow

by Kristen Simmons

  He’s wearing a symbol on his breast pocket. A red bird in flight. A cardinal. Bian has told me this is the symbol for the city of Glasscaster, the capitol. This must be where he plans on taking me.

  He’s ripping the net away, and for a moment I think he’s freeing me, he’s letting me go. But this is ridiculous. I’m who he wants.

  Then, as though I’m an animal, he weaves his uncalloused, unblistered fingers into my black, spiraled hair, and jerks my head back so hard that I arch halfway off the ground. I hiss at the burn jolting across my scalp. He points to one of the Trackers, who’s holding a small black box. Thinking this is a gun, I close my eyes and brace for the shot that will end my life. But no shot comes.

  “Open your eyes, and smile,” the Magnate says. With his other hand he is fixing his wave of stylishly silver hair, which has become ruffled in the chase.

  I do open my eyes, and I focus through my quaking vision on the black box. I’ve heard Bian talk about these things. Picture boxes. They freeze your image, so that it can be preserved forever. Like a trophy.

  I’m going to remember this moment forever, too. And I don’t even need his stupid picture box.

  CHAPTER 2

  I’VE BEEN LOCKED UP one hundred and seven days.

  That’s one hundred and seven days of meal supplement pills crammed down my throat, skin scrubbings, and whippings.

  That’s eighteen fights I’ve won, six escape attempts I’ve failed, and nine runs in solitary.

  That’s four auctions, three I’ve managed to avoid.

  Tomorrow is number five, and I’m not going, even if it means taking down the Governess herself. I’m not getting sold. Not now. Not ever.

  I walk to the far corner of the recreation yard, the side nearest to the rising sun. Not that I can see it—you can’t see anything through the gray-green haze that blankets this poisoned city—but I still remember what it looks like, and how it feels on my face. For now, that’s all I have.

  I glance behind me at the facility they call the Garden. The black glass walls reflect the light from the electric lamps that hang from the red sloping roof. Most of the girls are huddling under a wooden gazebo near the doors. We get let out each morning before breakfast, and they’re all waiting, tired and hungry, for the first chance to get back inside where it’s warm. The iron benches and neat bricked walkways all stand empty until our afternoon break, leaving the lower part of the yard clear.

  But I’m not alone. I look up at the black camera box staring down from the high chain-link fence that surrounds the property. It adjusts its position as I approach, tracking me as I move closer to the boundary. I give my nastiest look and gesture rudely, but the lens continues to stare, unblinking.

  The buzzing of the fence grows louder as I near. It’s electric; every once in a while a stray cat or bird will get fried when they venture too close. Most of the girls keep their distance, and most of the men who come to gawk from the street outside do too.

  The grass is a little longer here; the workers that cut it short never venture this far away from the main viewing areas. No sense in making it nice if no one that matters has a chance to see it. I pull off my pointy, knee-high boots, flexing my feet, and kneel on the ground, feeling the dew soak through the skintight uniform dress.

  As my eyes drift closed, I wind my fingers in the grass and pretend I’m back in the mountains. The birds are chirping and the branches are clicking together as the breeze rustles the pine needles. I’m bringing home fish from the stream, and Salma’s there waiting to cook it, while Tam and Nina chase each other around the fire. Bian and Metea are there too, but the vision fades when I see them, and my stomach feels sour and hollow.

  I’m not in the mountains. I’m stuck inside this electric fence, listening to the distant beat of the music from the all-night clubs in the Black Lanes and smelling garbage in the air.

  And Tam and Nina are with Salma, and that scares me straight through. Salma can take care of them, but she’s never had to before. She never wanted to. I can only hope that they’re all taking care of each other, and hiding from Trackers like I taught them.

  My hands have turned so that my palms face the sky, and I sing, softly so the others don’t hear me. I sing to Her—Mother Hawk, guardian of the afterlife—and try to find comfort knowing she will keep the souls of my family safe. Without any way to receive word from home, prayer is all I have.

  “Told you she’s cracked.”

  I jolt to my feet, turning sharply at the same time. Four girls are standing before me, all in the same black, low-cut dress. None of them are wearing shoes—probably how they managed to sneak up on me. One of them has bright red hair, cut at an angle to her chin—Daphne, my half-friend, who can only barely stand to be near me when I’m not embarrassing her, and refuses to acknowledge me at all when I am.

  I don’t blame her. We have nothing in common besides the fact that we’re both stuck here. She’s the daughter of a computer-programming Merchant, and has prepared her whole life for auction. She’s looking away now, arms crossed in a tight shield over her chest.

  My shoulders rise and I steel myself for a confrontation. I learned early on not to look for help within these walls. Everyone here is out for themselves.

  It’s a curvy girl with a turned-up nose who’s called me cracked. Her white hair is braided in two ropes that reach down to her waist, and she’s painting circles on her cheek with the end of one. I think her name is Lotus—she’s only been here since the last auction. I bare my teeth at her and she takes a quick step back.

  “Did you hear that screeching? How dreadful,” says another. She’s a singer; I’ve heard her practicing all week for tomorrow. Her hands are planted on her bony hips. They call her Lily.

  “She probably doesn’t even know what she’s doing,” says Lotus. “I’ve seen people like her before. Not right in the head. She’s probably a witch.” She whispers the last part.

  They talk about me like I’m not right in front of them. Like I’m deaf or something. Daphne’s examining her nails now, as if they’re the most interesting things she’s ever seen.

  “Well she is from the outside,” says Lily.

  I wonder how well she’d sing if I punched her in her skinny little throat.

  Lily’s delicate fingers lift to one of her long beaded earrings, the sign of the Unpromised. They don’t let me wear mine anymore. The last time I ripped one out right before they tried to put me on stage.

  “Yes,” says Daphne in a small voice. “And it’s because of that she’s going to fetch twice your bidding price.” She peels a hangnail off her thumb; a nervous habit I knew from our time here together. She always gets nervous on auction days. I don’t suppose this situation is making her feel any calmer; even I can feel the tension in this murky air.

  Lotus scoffs. “I don’t see why. It’s not as if she’s prettier than me … than any of us, I mean.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I tell her. She sneers.

  “It’s her insides that are different.” Daphne says this as though she’s bored, but her words have a bite to them. “She’s fertile, like the girls brought in from the outliers. She doesn’t have to have the treatments to activate her babymaker.”

  Daphne was the first to tell me why the hunters were so eager to sell me to the Garden. The city scientists think it’s the fresh air or the real food—as opposed to the meal supplement pills pumped down their throats in the early, formative years—that make wild girls like me, and those born in the outlying towns, like my mother, different. Whatever the reason, I’m worth quite a lot. I’m twice as likely to produce a living, healthy boy child than any other woman born in the city.

  Daphne cringes slightly, and I wonder if she’s thinking about the fertility injections. A lot of the girls here complain about them. The medicine gives them the shakes, and makes them throw up, and cry for no reason. The whole process seems a huge waste if they don’t even conceive a boy, but the docs do it because treating the gir
ls they have is more reliable than pulling stock from the outliers. The census works for women, just as it works against us. There must be a steady pool of childbearing females to populate the city.

  “Rumor,” says Lily. “It can’t be true. If it was, they’d move all of us outside the gates.”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh.

  “Right,” I say. “You wouldn’t last a day.” I try to imagine her setting a trap or cleaning a kill, but I can’t. “Besides, if the men set us all free, it’d be just a matter of time before they’d have an uprising on their hands.”

  “Stop it.” Daphne glances up as the camera above focuses with a buzzing noise. She’s warned me before that talking this way could get me in trouble. I’d do it a lot more if I thought it might actually get me out of here.

  “Deny it if you want,” I say with a shrug, “but it’s the truth.”

  These girls don’t know freedom. Men own women in the city, right down to the Virulent—those whose crimes have been recorded with a permanent X on their cheek—pimps and their whores. Not even the women in the surrounding towns are safe. Maybe they can still choose a husband, but the moment the female census gets too high, they’ll be collected, along with their girl children, to be sold in the city. Sometimes their families even offer them up early for credits.

  “It’s an honor to be chosen,” snaps Daphne. “I’d rather be pampered than end up a poor housewife in the outliers, or a prostitute in the Black Lanes, or living in a tent.”

  Her voice hitches on that last part. I shouldn’t have told her how we lived. She never understood how much warmer it was there than within these cold glass walls.

  “The wild girl might think she’s better than everyone else, but she never gets bids.” The fourth girl finally speaks. She’s tall, with a round face, and has been shoved in the Garden’s weight shifter so many times her waist is half the size of her hips and breasts. She looks like her back might break if she bends over too far. “She’s not worth the credits.”

  It shouldn’t bother me—a buyer is the last thing I want—but my cheeks get hot all the same. I size her up.

  She’s big, but not too smart. She likes to pick on the smaller ones around here and no one tries to stop her. Sweetpea is her name, sent over from one of the packed dorms on the south side of Glasscaster, where Keepers collect girl children and raise them for auction. She’s been on a registry since birth, groomed to be obedient and mild mannered. I don’t think any of their training stuck. She’s a brute.

  “Exactly,” says Lotus. “Look at her hair—it’s like sheep’s wool. I bet her mother laid down with a sheep and that’s how she came to be.”

  Daphne snorts. I glare at her for only a moment. My blood’s turning hot, and my fists clench at my sides.

  “I bet she laid down with a sheep,” says Sweetpea. “I bet the wild girl broke the purity rule with a sheep.” She laughs, and even her laugh sounds stupid. Huh huh huh. They all join her. They’re all laughing at me.

  I crack my knuckles.

  Before any sale is final, every girl is forced to have a medical test to determine if she’s pure or not. Magnates—the wealthiest men in the city—pay a lot of money for First Rounders; they want to be the first to own their brand-new toy. Then, when they tire of her, or when she gives them what they really want—a boy child—she’s returned to the Garden and resold as a Second or Third Rounder for childbearing, or pleasure, or anything else, to a man with less money. Her baby, if she has one, is handed over to the Keepers to be raised.

  The First Rounders will call her a Sloppy Second. Sloppy Seconds don’t call the Third Rounders anything. Sloppy Seconds don’t talk much.

  My ma used to tell Salma these stories to convince her to stay clear of the city. When she got to the bit about the medical exam, she always reached for my hand, as if to assure me she’d never let something like that happen to me.

  I take a step towards Sweetpea and her full lips tilt up in a smirk.

  “Clover,” warns Daphne.

  I cringe at the name. Larkspur, Thistle, Lily, Daphne … There are fifty or so of us here at any given time, all named after flowers, myself included. Clover. Most of these plants are at least somewhat poisonous, which I’m sure the Governess doesn’t know because she’s never been outside the city walls.

  And of course, Clover is a weed. Which she probably does know.

  Lotus and Lily stand on either side of Sweetpea, glancing to her for their next move. Behind me, I hear the camera swivel, and know that I don’t have much time.

  “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you fat face?” I say to the biggest of the four. It’s a low cut, but I need to get her riled up, even if calling her names makes my insides feel ugly.

  Sweetpea tilts her head to the side, her dull eyes narrowing. I take another step up. In order for this to work, she’s got to come at me. I was planning on doing this closer to breakfast, but now works too.

  “I don’t have to think it,” she says. “I know it.”

  There are more girls gathering now. Ten or so more have made the trip down and have formed a half circle behind Sweetpea.

  “With a face like that it’s no wonder no one wants to take you home,” I say, trying to sound as cold as she does. “Sour-faced Sweetpea. Has a nice ring to it.”

  She twitches. “At least I get bids,” she says.

  The girls around her agree.

  I scoff. “You’ve been here a lot longer than me, that’s all I know.”

  “Clover,” says Daphne again. She’s not crossing over to my side. I don’t expect her to anyway. She is only a half friend, after all.

  A girl with straight black hair and slanted eyes comes up beside her. She’s been named Buttercup, of all things. Daphne immediately blushes.

  “The Keepers are coming,” says Buttercup.

  I glance over Sweetpea’s broad shoulder and see she’s right. Three Keepers—or Pips as I call them—are rushing out of the building, black caftans floating behind them. The Pips are assigned to take care of the youth in this city, whether at the Garden, in one of the children’s dormitories, or even in some wealthy Magnate’s house. They’re male—but you couldn’t tell by looking at them. Their faces are smooth and hairless. Too smooth, like their skulls are made of clay, and their features have all been softened. The rumor is that when they were children, their parents signed them over to the city in payment of their taxes or debts. In a Keeper facility in the medical district, their boy parts were removed, and they were given strange medical treatments to alter their hormones and stunt their growth. I guess they’re still sore about it, because they have nasty tempers and are snide even on their best days. I can’t blame them, but that doesn’t mean I like them.

  I don’t have much time.

  “Ooh,” I say. “Keepers. Scared, fat face?”

  Sweetpea twitches.

  “The Governess says I’ll be chosen by the end of the week,” she says.

  “That’s what she tells you,” I say. “I heard her talking to a buyer the last time I was sent to her office. She tried to throw you in two for one with Rose, but he wouldn’t even take you for free.”

  “Shut up,” she says, lunging forward, but stopping just before we collide.

  Not good enough.

  “I promise I’m out of here before you,” I say, closing the distance between us so that I have to look up at her. Quick as I can, I grab a fistful of her hair. I yank and a chunk rips away in my hand. Her upper half wobbles on her skinny waist. Her eyes go glassy with tears.

  “Oops,” I say, looking at the long strands hanging limply from my grasp, and then back to her face. “That won’t look good on stage.”

  Crack.

  I cough and choke on the fountain of blood that gurgles down my throat. It’s thick and vile, and if I wasn’t so busy concentrating on standing upright, I would puke it up.

  I’ve got to hand it to her. Sweetpea’s knuckles are like iron. My nose is definitely broken.<
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  I blink and the girl before me wavers in my vision. Her hands stretch out to her sides as though she might want to embrace me. The Pips are closing in now—I can hear that strange noise they all make when they’re flustered. It must be a side effect of the treatments that make them into Keepers, because every Pip I’ve ever met does it.

  “Pip, pip, pip!”

  I blink again and wait for the world to stop swaying. When it does, I smile.

  A whip smacks down on my arm and I jerk back. Another comes down on my shoulder.

  Stupid Pips and their stupid little beaters.

  They use their whips to herd me away from the crowd. As I pass, the round, shocked mouths of the girls melt into snide little gossip holes.

  As for Sweetpea, she’s now looking just as surprised as they are. Poor thing. She’s about as sharp as a brick.

  I’ve really put the Pips in a buzz. Two of them stand on either side, slapping at the backs of my arms with their beaters to usher me forward. Sour looks scrunch both of their pretty faces, and even their flowing dress shirts seem to have deflated. I can tell from their greenish tint that the blood has made them sickly.

  “Pip, pip, pip, pip, pip!” one sputters before he can even speak. He’s picked up my boots and is holding them away from his body as if they’re a dead animal.

  I’m impressed. Five Pips is a new personal best.

  “The Governess won’t be pleased, no she won’t! Pip!” he finishes. I wipe some of the blood on my dress sleeve and he can’t hide his “eww.”

  The Governess runs the Garden, the facility where I’ve been held since my capture. She has the final word on our conditioning, how we’re readied for the suitors.

  She’s a wretched peacock of a woman.

  She calls herself an artist, claiming that her decorations up our auction price on market day. But she’s no artist. An artist creates because she has to, because if she doesn’t, she’ll explode. Bian was an artist. He was handy with sculptures, which is why he left our camp in the mountains to make a living in town. I can still see his skilled hands forming figures of horses and wolves and birds from shapeless blocks of wood. The Governess is his opposite. A false artist; she creates so others will pat her on the back, and that makes her more a slave than me.