Poison

by Lan Chan

  Aiden’s mouth is a grim line, and I get the urge to place my hands on either side of his face and lift his cheeks into a smile.

  “I could have taken him,” I say.

  Aiden’s gaze drops to the knives on my belt, and then there is it. A smile. A small one, but I’ll take it. It transforms the bleakness of his expression into something whimsical, and in it I catch a glimpse of the boy I once knew.

  “You know what?” he says. “This time I believe you.”

  He lets go of my arm and packs his supplies. His movements are confident and deliberate, and I get a stab of something that resembles regret that I wasn’t there to grow up with him. Most of all, I’m aware of what he’s done for me tonight. What he will be giving up for me if the Council discovers Vargas’s body and links it back to him. Yet for some reason, I can’t verbalise how I’m feeling even as he walks away. How do you say, Thanks for killing a man for me?

  “Aiden, wait,” I manage to say. He turns. “The petals. They’re the only part of the plant that isn’t poisonous.” This time the smile he gives me sends unexpected heat through my entire body.

  Thirty-Four

  The Seeders don’t drag me away during the night and nobody forces me awake next morning, so I’m hopeful Aiden and I have literally gotten away with murder. When I turn on the television, there is nothing being reported except the perks of living in Harlan’s Landing.

  That evening, I am summoned down to the lobby where my driver is waiting for me. He passes me a note from Ace. Get in the car, it reads. Your first wish is about to come true. I do as the note says.

  The city rolls past in a glittering of lights and reflections from high-rise glass windows. In roughly fifteen minutes, the built-up city gives way to grand suburban mansions set amongst great expanses of even lawn.

  The car rolls to a momentary stop in front of the wrought-iron gates of one of these monstrosities. The driver must speak to the guard at the gate, because before long, we’re moving again. I jump out the passenger door before the car comes to a complete stop. A flustered older man whom I assume is a butler, going by his black and white uniform, opens the door after my fourth press of the bell.

  He looks about to give me a stern rebuke when Ace’s voice calls out behind him. “Who’s there, Winston?”

  “Wind Dancer, ma’am,” he says. He wrinkles his nose and it makes his silver moustache twitch. Ace appears at Winston’s side. She takes me down a winding pebble path around the right of the house. On either side of the path are beds containing herbs and multi-grafted fruit trees bearing big baubles of apples, peaches, and lemons all on the one tree. There are other trees and plants I can’t even name, with elongated pink fruit and fuzzy hairs on the outside.

  I follow Ace past an ornamental lake where a number of marquees have been set up and are being decorated by wait staff.

  “I hope you appreciate this,” Ace says. “I had to have a party to cover up this meeting.” She sees the look on my face. “Don’t worry, you’re not invited.”

  We arrive at a red bungalow the size of some of the houses in the Landing. My jaw drops when I see what’s mounted on all four walls, scattered on banquet tables in the centre of the room, and even strewn carelessly on the cement floor. Hundreds and thousands of electronic circuits, pulleys, levers, gears, and in one corner, a scale model of the Arts Centre. On one wall is an entire bookshelf filled to the brim with tattered old books, which surprises me because most Seeders prefer to use the electronic pads. This would be Micah’s idea of heaven. A waiter stands with his back to us, but I can tell its Gage by his golden hair.

  “You have ten minutes. Speak freely. There are no bugs in here,” Ace says as she shuts the door behind me.

  Gage smiles when he turns around and sees me. He holds out his arms, and I don’t hesitate to hug him back. Everything that’s happened comes crashing back so I’m suddenly gulping to stop myself from bawling like a baby.

  When he releases me, I see in the way he swallows that he’s having trouble keeping his composure too. We have so little time, and there are a million things I want to say to him. First, before he can stop me, I pull up his shirtsleeve and gape at the constellation of bruises on his forearm.

  “What have they been doing to you?” I ask.

  Gage hastily replaces the sleeve. “They’ve been taking samples of my blood and some skin grafts.”

  “What for?”

  “Beats me.”

  I narrow my eyes at the way he’s leaning to the right a little, as though it pains him to stand up straight.

  “Just from your arm or from other parts of your body?” He looks away and the implication enrages me. “Gage?”

  He blows out a breath and shows me the needle marks on his back and stomach. I can only think of one reason they would be doing that. When I meet his eyes again and see how perfectly blue they are and how utterly devastating he is in general, I know I’m right. The Seeders are using him as a clone donor.

  “I’ll kill them,” I say.

  To my surprise, he snorts.

  “I was looking after myself long before you came along, Rory,” he says. “In fact, I was pretty good at surviving before we left the Landing.” He pauses, and the grief that shows itself in the catch of his Adam’s apple is palpable. I know we’re both thinking of Leura, but I can’t find the right thing to say to ease his suffering. Perhaps because I haven’t been able to ease my own. Suddenly, I have to know if he blames me for what happened to the Landing.

  “About my decision in the hearing—” I start to say, but he stops me.

  “You had to make a choice,” he says. “They were all going to die anyway. I don’t blame you.” The gaze sweeps the bungalow. “I can only hope my convictions are as strong when it’s my turn.”

  I’m alarmed by the direction of this conversation, and he must sense it, because all of a sudden he changes the topic.

  “I watched your performance the other night. Have the Seeders always tried to kill you in the circus like that?”

  I can only nod.

  “I’m sorry about the things I said in the forest. If I’d known this was what it was like for you…”

  It’s my turn to forgive him.

  “I’m going to get us out,” I say.

  This time he really laughs.

  “How?” he says. “This place is crawling with Seeders and scanners and all sorts of technology.” His arm sweeps the bungalow to make his point. “Even the Seeders themselves have to do their talking in hidden places. How did you even get that girl to set this up?”

  “I’m the Wind Dancer,” I say.

  “Yes, you are,” he agrees. “But even you have your limits. The only way out of this place is in a coffin or a guard uniform, and I know which one I would prefer.” That’s when I see the undercurrent of rage simmering beneath his exterior. His words chill me and bring back the wish he expressed in the forest. “All I want from the Seeders is their extermination,” he’d said.

  Ace comes back before I can reassure Gage. She tells me it’s time to go.

  “Hang in there,” I tell Gage. “I’ll think of something.”

  He nods, but I can tell he doesn’t really believe me. I don’t blame him. I hardly believe myself.

  ***

  Two days later in the labs, Yuri informs me it’s time to harvest Micah’s Rose. The guards take us out in one of their light aircrafts. I hate flying in aircrafts. It’s a contradiction that I can’t explain. It reminds me too much of the day I was thrown out of that aeroplane. But I make myself scan the scenery, looking for traces of Vargas. There are none, and the tension building up inside me releases a fraction.

  Just like a few nights before, I have to personally extract the flowers from their perches in the trees. Then I shadow Yuri as he instructs a pair of assistants to sterilise the equipment and take precise cuttings. “There isn’t much here,” one of the assistants, a wiry young man, says.

  “If there was, do you think it would still b
e a secret?” Yuri snaps. “We have enough to create as many new plants as we want. Come spring, we won’t know what to do with them all.” I feel he says a lot of it for my benefit, and it hits home to me that the clock is ticking. Yuri doesn’t allow anyone else but him and me to be involved in the manufacture of the serum. It only just dawns on me that it would be impossible to keep this secret if it weren’t for Yuri, which only makes putting him in danger worse.

  As the days stretch on, I begin to suspect he’s not really even a Seeder. The odd inflection in his speech and some of the phrases he comes up with are entirely alien to me. When I ask if he’s from Hannah’s Peak, the most remote of the regions, he just clears his throat and ignores me until I drop it.

  Every day after finishing in the lab, I carry a batch of serum with me to Thomas’s apartment. The stone in the pit of my stomach has turned into a boulder. I came here with the purpose of saving Papa and the Landing. In one fell swoop, the Council destroyed those plans. Now I’m helping nurse a Seeder, the one responsible for many of the abominations in the forest. Am I really living day by day because of the threat of violence against people in regions I don’t know? When I left the Landing, I had ties. There were people I cared about to protect. What do I have now? Why don’t I just run?

  The answer is staring me right in the face when I open Tom’s door and find him perched in bed, chewing on a bag of what appear to be pumpkin seeds. I don’t know if he scares me more on days like today when he’s lucid or during his bouts of childlike insanity. Each time his jaw clamps down, I feel my blood boil. If he’s eating them, then they’re not modified. You can tell because the seeds are a natural beige and not aqua blue.

  That seed could have fed a family. That one could have brought medicine. That one could have crossbred and created new viable crops. I would give anything for one of those seeds, and here he is shovelling them down his throat like they’re lollies.

  “Aurora,” Tom says. His spirits are high and colour has returned to his cheeks He takes the nectar from me and downs the lot. Whatever limitations Micah’s Rose has, it’s still buying him, and in turn me, some time. Do I feel bad that I’m giving him false hope? He flicks a broken seed onto the floor. No, I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel anything besides the memory of people I love screaming for vengeance.

  “Want one?” He offers the bag of seeds to me. I know better than to reach for it. I fell for a similar trick one of the first days and haven’t forgotten it since. The joke’s on him because I take as many seeds as I want each time he falls asleep, and no one even thinks to frisk me after I’ve been with him.

  “Hello, Tom. What would you like me to read to you today?” The other few times I’ve been here, I’ve just picked books at random, and he lies practically comatose with the duvet tucked up under his chin. Today, Tom is alert, and I imagine his choice will be deliberate. I secretly hope for a thick book in case I want to brain him with it. He produces a palm-sized spiral notebook bound in soft tan leather.

  I take it from him and seat myself in the armchair beside his bed as per our routine. He doesn’t indicate where he wants me to start, so I flip to the beginning. The notebook is actually a diary with entries dated almost fifty years ago. The handwriting is crooked but legible and written in plain blue ink. The first entry begins midsentence and that, along with the thin stub of torn pages, tells me this diary is incomplete.

  “Mist and wind,” I read from the first word. “They don’t show themselves, but we know they’re there. These men walk like ghosts in the night, their feet barely kissing the ground. Sousuke has nicknamed them Wind Dancers. He becomes more agitated with each passing day we trespass on this land. I have to remind him that peace between us and the Wanderers is contingent on his cooperation. Macey has been in my ear again about ditching Sousuke. I wish she’d stop. The Hanada Clan live closest to the red plane, and without Sousuke, we would have no chance of finding the seed bank. Though I begin to doubt this plane where the wind is red even exists.”

  I finish the sentence and fold the diary closed. My grandfather’s name was Sousuke Hanada. He died when my mother was very young. My fingers tremble as they trace a path along the ring bindings. I look up from its pages and see Tom peering at me, his expression feverish with anticipation. He knows I’ve made the connection. This diary is an account of an expedition my grandfather took with a group of Seeders. Their goal must have been to find the seed bank. A seed bank that, by the account of this diary, is all too real.

  Thirty-Five

  I read the words “Wind Dancer” written in the scrawl of a person long dead.

  “Why have you shown me this?” I ask.

  “Why do I do anything anymore?” he counters. “Time has a way of catching up to all of us in the end.” Maybe I’m wrong and today isn’t one of his lucid days. He sure seems crazy. “You have Sheila convinced you don’t know anything about the seed bank. You might even have yourself convinced. But there’s no chance Evelyn wouldn’t have told you one way or another what she knew about the passage to the seed bank.”

  I feel anger spike in me, but with much willpower, I keep it at bay. “It’s difficult to pass things on to your children when you don’t get much of a chance to see them,” I say. Tom appears to revel in my frankness, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still a Seeder.

  As usual, though, he doesn’t rebuke me. He seems more intent on having me reveal answers I don’t actually know. I let him snatch the diary from me, and he gives a crooked, almost toothless smile when I shrink back. I know the rotting sickness isn’t contagious, but it’s really hard to shake the paranoia of being infected.

  “You should be more worried about the rotten Dempsey gene.” He snickers. Is he referring to Harlan? That’s the one thing that endears him to me. He seems to have an almost maniacal dislike of his own nephew. “I want to go for a walk.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. Sheila has given me strict instructions to keep him inside the apartment. Besides, he’s so frail and riddled with bedsores I doubt he can actually move. He proves me wrong by slipping off the covers and draping a blue robe from his bedside around himself.

  “We’re going for a walk,” he says, picking up the diary. But instead of leading me back the way I always come in, he unlocks a door adjacent to the elevator that I had thought was a closet. I catch up as he disappears through the door, and I lose the ability to speak at the view outside. Chirping fills the air around us as the birds flit from bare tree branches the colour of fire. Shrubs of every size and shape are planted within the beds, and even in the cold they manage to flower sporadically and fill the air with a delicious clean scent. Not like the musky odours of the plants in Harlan’s conservatory.

  Tom’s breath condenses into mist as he moves along the path between the many raised beds. There is no dome to protect us, no glasshouse walls to imitate the heat of the summer sun. It’s as natural a surrounding as the Citadel will permit. Even more so than the Forgotten Garden. We’re standing in a secret garden atop the lab. The roof is surrounded by chain link fencing, but that’s all the security it has. No guards in every corner or cameras conspicuously hidden in tree branches. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Tom says. To my dismay, he begins taking off the robe. Then he stands there in his flannelette pyjamas with his arms outstretched, as though he’s coming out from a hundred-year sleep. “Everything in here is heirloom and been left to grow naturally. No chemicals whatsoever and none of these plants will kill you just by touching it.” He tears the bark off a tree with weeping branches. “See this willow bark? Natural aspirin. You can chew on it for pain relief.”

  Tom approaches a metal bench at the centre of the garden. It’s nestled inside an herb knot and provides a three-sixty-degree view of the roof. “This was my experiment once upon a time. I used it as a control to isolate the best characteristics in the plants I modified. What was it all for?” Though the question is rhetorica
l, I can’t help but wonder what the answer is or why he’s asking it. It’s a bit late to be growing a conscience.

  He gives a defeated sigh and slumps down on the right side of the bench, placing the diary beside him out of my reach. I sit and pull my knees up to my chest for warmth.

  “That diary belonged to my mother,” he says. “An account of the last known expedition to find the hidden seed bank. As you can see, it wasn’t a successful one.” He shuffles closer to me so our knees almost touch. I resist the powerful urge to get up and move away. “There are missing pages, but from what I can tell, in the end she suspected Sousuke Hanada, your grandfather, of colluding with these Wind Dancer people. She believed he knew where and how to get to the seed bank but was keeping it a secret. Sheila will stop at nothing to find it.” He gives me a meaningful stare. “Are you sure your mother never told you anything?”

  I’m not sure anymore, but I’m even less sure of telling Tom that he might be right and I might actually know where the seed bank is. “If the Chief Warden is so intent on finding this seed bank, why was my mother murdered?” I say.

  Tom smiles knowingly, like he’s been expecting me to ask that very question. “Everyone has their uses to a point,” he says. “Evelyn was valuable, but the Council weighed that up against her inciting a rebellion, and a hard decision was made.” He speaks as though my mother’s death was the only option.

  “Why do you care so much?” I snap. “You have silos full of seeds. What more do you want?” I know what he wants. What all the Warden Council wants. Power and control and ensuring they keep it.