Elysium Girls

by Elysium Girls (retail) (epub)

  “Where’s Mother Morevna?” I asked.

  But before either guard could respond, Mr. Jameson came through the back door of the barn with fifty men behind him. Some were tall, broad, experienced, and some looked younger and scrawnier than the two who had been our escorts this morning, and they shook in their boots as Mr. Jameson assembled them in two straight lines before us.

  “This is it?” Zo said, leaning over to whisper to Judith.

  “Good morning, girls,” said Mr. Jameson. “These here are all the guards and builders and volunteers I could muster in a day, but I’ll try to get some more. They’re ready, willing, and eager to learn everything y’all have to teach them about fighting Dust Soldiers, right, boys?”

  “Yes, sir!” they said, some more enthusiastic than others.

  “We’ve been here in this desert for as long as any of us want to be here,” he said. “And even if this is a long shot, we’re prepared to give it all we got to get out of here.”

  He wasn’t just following orders, I realized. He really believed we could do this. For once in ten years, we’d offered him the chance to go back to his family, to make a difference, and he was going to pursue it with his whole heart.

  “Now let’s get started,” he said, and with a gesture, he gave us the floor.

  We exchanged glances. Then Olivia pushed me forward.

  “Um…” I said nervously. “So as it is, the plan is to build a bunch of horses like the ones we have. The magic in them—Asa’s magic mixed with some of our own—is deadly to the Dust Soldiers when combined with weapons, so… we’re going to power the horses up with magic, and, when—if!—the Dust Soldiers come for us, we shut the doors of Elysium behind us and fight them as long as we can. If we can extend the Game to ten years and one day, we’ll break it, and…”

  I swallowed. It was strange to be in front of everyone again, speaking to them like the leader I’d always hoped to be. I felt my heart had begun to speed.

  “And we may have a chance to finally get out of here,” Olivia finished, coming forward to stand next to me. “So the plan is: While the builders build the horses, the soldiers learn to fight and the witches practice magic so they can serve as an artillery, kind of. So… builders! Come forward.”

  About fifteen scruffy, hard-looking men came forward, and I could see how rough their hands were. Many of them had burns on their forearms from working with hot metal.

  “I’m Susanah Mihecoby, inventor of the horses,” said Susanah, going to greet them. She was almost comically short compared to the tallest of them. “If you show me where the metal is, we can get started right now.”

  Mowse ran out from behind Judith and came to stand by Susanah.

  “I’m going too,” Mowse said. “I know how to build these.”

  “Sure you do,” Susanah said. “But I had something different planned for you.” Susanah turned to Mr. Jameson. “Hey! Do y’all have a school here?”

  “Sure we do,” said Mr. Jameson. “It’ll start up in about thirty minutes.”

  “School?” Mowse blanched. “What?”

  “I want to send Mowse to school today, just to see how it goes,” Susanah said.

  “I can arrange that,” said Mr. Jameson. “Tommy, why don’t you take her down to—”

  “I can’t go to school!” Mowse said. “I won’t go to school! I’m going to build the horses with you!”

  “Mowse, please,” Susanah said. “I know I’m not your mother, but I’m the closest thing to a parent you’ve got. And now that there’s a school around, I want you to at least try to get an education. A real one, not just me teaching you ABCs and simple math. Real stuff I can’t teach you.”

  “But what if they make me forget everything, like they made you?” Mowse asked so quietly I almost couldn’t hear her. Her eyes were big and wet and frightened.

  Susanah blinked in surprise, and when she spoke again, her voice quavered. “They won’t, Kahúu,” she said gently. “It’s different for you. I promise. And if they do, I’ll pull you out, no questions asked. Just go and give it a chance, okay?”

  Mowse looked at her, then back to the rest of us.

  “It really will be fine,” I told her. “You’ll get to do all kinds of things. Read books, learn math, play on the playground, study maps of Europe and Asia and Africa—”

  “What’s the point if we’re all going to die?” Mowse said.

  “We’re not,” Olivia said. “I promise. Right, Susanah?”

  “Right. You know I wouldn’t let you die. Now, go on, okay?”

  With one final hug for Susanah, Mowse went with Tommy, the pimply guard from before, and headed across town to school.

  “Okay,” Susanah said. “Where’s the metal?”

  “Out back,” said Mr. Jameson. “Behind the building.”

  “Great,” said Susanah. “Builders, come with me!”

  And without another word, Susanah led them, unsure and shuffling, out of the church.

  The others looked at us expectantly.

  “Um… Judith! Zo!” Olivia said. “You think you can teach them how to fight Dust Soldiers?”

  “We got it, boss!” Judith said. “Come on, y’all, let’s go.” And she and Zo led them to the back of the barn to begin sparring.

  Only Cassandra, Olivia, and I were left. We turned to each other, bewildered. It seemed unbelievable, Mother Morevna trusting us with this responsibility and not being here, breathing down our necks.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Cassandra. She looked at all of us, then at Mr. Jameson.

  He put up his hands. “That’s completely up to you witches,” he said. “Though I wouldn’t say no to an enchanted rifle or something. Maybe a bunch of ’em for the artillery, if, as y’all say, enchanted weapons are what gets ’em.”

  “That’s… not a bad idea, actually,” said Olivia.

  “What’s Mother Morevna doing now?” I asked.

  “She’s handling the Sacrifice, trying to get a new one built up before the Dust Soldiers come back,” said Mr. Jameson. “Been working herself to the bone these days. I’m surprised it hasn’t killed her, to tell the truth. I know she doesn’t expect to live through this, whatever happens, but she’ll never stop trying.”

  But before I could say anything, Mrs. Winthrop, Mother Morevna’s housekeeper, appeared in the doorway, lugging a huge rucksack.

  “These are for all of you,” she grunted. “Sent by Mother Morevna.”

  She emptied the rucksack onto the table before us. Books scattered to and fro, pages fluttering.

  “Spell books?” Cassandra said.

  “And some kind of witch belts,” Mrs. Winthrop said, opening a pouch and pulling three spell components belts from the rucksack and throwing them onto the table. “One for each of you.”

  The others took the belts nervously and buckled them on.

  Mrs. Winthrop’s eyes flickered over all our faces and lingered on mine.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to you. But if it does, then, for all our sakes, make use of this time. Lord knows we’ve had enough funerals around here as it is.” She looked up at Mr. Jameson. “Come with me, Jameson,” she said. “Mother Morevna wants to speak to you.”

  Mr. Jameson nodded to us and followed Mrs. Winthrop back to the church.

  I looked from face to face. “Are y’all ready?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

  As if on cue, the sounds of hammering, sawing, metal rending rose in the air.

  “Hayloft,” said Olivia, jerking her head toward the ladder. “Let’s go. Maybe it’ll be quieter up there.”

  We each grabbed a stack of books and headed up to the hayloft. There among the hay and dust, we laid everything on the floor and sat in a circle, dividing the books among ourselves.

  “Well…” I said. “Let’s get started, I guess. We’ll… focus on offense first. Illusions, projectiles, things like that. Then… then we can move on
to the defensive spells. Does that sound okay?”

  Everyone nodded.

  For three hours we studied, we discussed, we tested sigils and runes, drawing them in the dust with our fingertips. We made lists of the spells we could perform, and ones that might be useful for Olivia to copy.

  I had never seen Olivia like this. She always seemed so confident, so sure. Now she paced like a tiger in a cage, muscles taut, full of energy, but with nowhere for it to go.

  “Do y’all mind if I get some air?” she said.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  Olivia pushed the door to the hayloft open. Then she gasped and stepped back.

  “Holy shit, Sal,” she said. “Come look at this.”

  I went to the window and looked out. From the hayloft, most of Elysium was visible, the church, the jail. But from this height, the differences were even starker. Where the Sacrifice building had stood before, there was a new, crudely constructed platform on wheels. The fruits of Mother Morevna’s labors. There were guards all around it, watching as men moved boxes and bags and sacks onto it, trying to scrimp what they could from everyone in the vain hope that it would be enough. No wonder the food rations were so much smaller now. Only one meal a day, instead of three. But the pile of goods was only a third of what it had been before—and Mother Morevna was lucky to have gotten that. The sight of it made my head pound and my pulse begin to tic faster.

  “What’s that line for?” Cassandra said behind me. I turned in the direction of her pointed finger. The Dowsing Well. A long, snaking line had formed from it. Men and women standing in line with their water rations in hand, waiting, blank faced and quiet, as two stern-faced guards ushered them forward with their buckets.

  “The Dowsing Well,” I said. “Looks like it’s been opened to everyone at all hours. I’ve never seen it so bad.”

  An earthquake rumbled under us, and dust shook from the rafters.

  The hospital was full to bursting, full of unconscious people being carried on stretchers, anxious farmers waiting to see loved ones, nurses running from the hospital to the jail next door with buckets of water. Mr. Jameson hadn’t exaggerated. Dust Sickness was tightening its grip on Elysium, squeezing, choking, suffocating, and somewhere, I knew that Lucy was out there in the thick of it.

  By the end of the training, our brains were fried and our fingers were covered with dust and ash, but I still felt numb with worry. We came down from the loft and met Zo, Judith, and Susanah, who had had quite a day as the de facto head of the “Scientific branch” as she called it.

  “—they started out by talking over me,” Susanah was saying. “Me! The inventor of the only weapon that works against the Dust Soldiers!”

  “Next time, tell them you’ll slit their throats.” Olivia winked. “Always worked for me.”

  “I ended up saying, ‘Do you want my help or not? Because with you talking so much, we may as well start making our peace.’”

  But I barely heard any of it. Again, I took my penny from my neck and held it in my hand.

  “Find Lucy,” I whispered to it. “Please. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

  But once again, my penny was still.

  “Are you ladies ready to head home?” said a guard, coming down to us. He was a different guard this time, an older one, with graying hair at his temples.

  “What about Mowse?” said Susanah.

  “Your little girl? She should be back at the residence by four,” said the guard. “But I’m supposed to take y’all to get your water rations before I take you home, so let’s get going.”

  The other guard, the one I was waiting for, met us at the door, and we began the silent walk home. The crowd parted like the Red Sea for Moses.

  As we neared the Dowsing Well, the line had wound its way several times in front of the church, and nearly all the way back to the windmill.

  “Is there another place we can get water?” Cassandra asked as the guards led us toward the line.

  “You can go to a different windmill,” said the older guard. “But this water is the cleanest in town.”

  “Let’s risk it for now,” said Olivia, her eyes on the shuttered windows of the church. Up behind the rose window, I couldn’t see her, but I could feel Mother Morevna’s presence looking out, watching over all of Elysium.

  The guards shrugged and led us to the much shorter line at the next well over.

  Desperately, I scanned the tops of the walls, looking at the new graves, squinting for names. But I didn’t see Lucy’s name, not on this side of the wall.

  The crowd parted, and in front of us, four men in dusty white uniforms, with dust masks, carried a stretcher across our path. There was a man on it, lying still, mud-vomit on his shirt. But they were headed toward the jail, not the hospital. There must be too many people in the hospital now, I thought, worry reaching up and squeezing my heart.

  “Can I go?” I whispered to the guard. “To the hospital? I think my friend is there.”

  The guard looked at the line, then across to the hospital. He looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, then gave me the nod to go ahead.

  I ran all the way to the hospital, and when I got there, the waiting room was so full that there was no room to stand, let alone sit. Fear rose over everything, so thick I felt I could almost touch it with my hands. People of all ages, all colors, all genders sat or stood or leaned against the walls. Guards, factory workers, farmers, cowboys, all wearing cloth dust masks. In a sad, sick way, I thought, Here’s our equality. Here, our fear made all of us truly, horribly equal. Who could escape Death, after all? Who was immune to this outbreak?

  “Excuse me,” I said, approaching the desk. The nurse was one I’d never met before and she looked at me with tired, rheumy eyes over her dust mask. “Lucy Arbor… is she here?”

  But the nurse cocked her head to the side and looked at me, confused.

  “Lucy Arbor? Our nurse in training?” she said. “You just missed her.”

  My heart leapt. I ran outside and looked around, scanning the crowd for her colorful kerchiefs, her bright dresses. But all the faces, kerchiefs, dresses were drab and dust colored. My heart sank. Surely she had seen me coming, or else why wouldn’t she have used the front door? It was as though she had just vanished. Worse, like she was avoiding me.

  By the time the girls came back from training, sweaty, tense, and covered in dust and ash, Asa too was completely drained. He had spent all day with Rosa. He had made her breakfast, read to her, done a few magic tricks, made her lunch, read a few passages from a book, and assured her that, yes, Olivia would be coming back today.

  “Olivia!” Rosa shouted, running into Olivia’s arms.

  “Thank you,” Olivia mouthed over Rosa’s shoulder. “So much.”

  “You all right, Asa?” Sal asked, though she didn’t look all right, herself.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just… glad y’all are back. Taking care of her full-time is hard work.”

  “Looks like you did great.” Olivia beamed. She came over and gave him a peck on the cheek while Rosa wasn’t looking. (“Ooooooooooh!” said Judith.)

  Asa sighed, went to the washroom, closed the door, and locked it. Then he let his human form unravel, conserving as much magic as he could. He looked down at his daemon arms, hands, claws. They were as alien to him now as his human hands had been only a short time ago. He would miss living.

  Suddenly, Asa smelled the familiar, unmistakable scent of mercury, and a dark, familiar voice wrapped itself around his brain.

  Having a little trouble, are you, O great one chosen by my Mother? Death said.

  “I’m fine,” he said under his breath. “No thanks to You. I know what You did when Sal and I fought. You destroyed the Sacrifice building, didn’t You?”

  You can’t prove that, She said. And even if you could, it wouldn’t change anything.

  “Are You just here to gloat?” Asa asked. “I thought Death would have better things to do.”

&n
bsp; My, my! Your time as a human has made you awfully saucy! said Death. But no. I am here to make you an offer—a very good one, I might add.

  “I doubt I’d be interested,” said Asa.

  Oh, I don’t know about that, said Death. It wasn’t so long ago that you were out in the desert, crying out for my Sister to hear you. Well, I am not so hard-hearted as She is. I am offering you a chance for humanity. Leave this temporary realm and go to the real world, the human world, as the human you have learned to be. Untouched by the grit and ugliness of this place. Untouched by my wrath.

  An earthquake roared beneath him and Asa steadied himself against the sink.

  Well? She said.

  “What do You want?” Asa said. “I know now You’d never offer something like that for free.”

  All I want is for you to leave, Death said. Leave now and let all thoughts of this little rebellion, this little war fall behind you. You realize how much of a long shot it is, right? How little of a chance you have? Do not use the magic inherent in your form to power those… machines! It isn’t worth it. Not compared to a real human life.

  An image rose in his mind. Asa saw himself—his human self, around twenty-five years old—walking the streets of Paris. He saw himself sailing on a boat, out over the rich blue Mediterranean, drinking champagne at a party on New Year’s Eve, being kissed by a woman whose eyes sparkled like blue diamonds. He saw himself aging, becoming middle-aged, then old. He saw his hair whitening. He saw himself reading a story to dark-haired children who could only be his grandchildren. The Velveteen Rabbit, he read on the cover.

  A beautiful dream. A beautiful life. It was everything that Asa had ever wanted, everything he’d ever dared to dream of, and when he reached up to touch his daemon face, he felt human tears on his claws.

  But he thought of Olivia. And Rosa. And Sal. And Susanah and Mowse and Judith and Cassandra and Zo. He thought of the people of Elysium with their dust masks and their sunken cheeks and muddy lungs.

  “I can’t trade their lives for one I was never meant to have,” Asa said, a note of iron in his voice that surprised even himself.