Burn

by Julianna Baggott

Glassings’ eyelids flutter.

  Partridge puts his hand on top of Glassings’, which is cold and dry. “Tell me what to do,” he says. “I’m scared.” Cygnus was supposed to stand with him. Glassings promised him that. “Cygnus is a bunch of cowards, aren’t they? Where are they now? Sitting in their apartments staring out at the streets?” Partridge pushes back in his chair. He rubs his new pinky.

  Glassings starts to cough, his chest heaving, and it’s as if the pain of his broken ribs wakes him up. His eyes are just watery slits. Partridge says, “I’m here. I’m right here.”

  Glassings’ eyes lock on Partridge’s. He nods to Partridge, as if wanting him to come closer. Partridge leans forward. “What am I supposed to do?” he says.

  “The next good thing,” Glassings whispers, “and the next good thing after that. If each is a good step, you’ll move forward.”

  “I’m marrying Iralene. It feels like the wrong step.” He’s desperate. He needs Glassings to tell him what to do. He feels like he’s been careening out of control toward a cliff and that Glassings could tell him how to hit the brakes.

  Glassings stares at Partridge. He’s quiet for a moment. “You don’t love her?”

  “I’m supposed to be marrying Lyda.”

  Glassings narrows his gaze. “Answer the question.”

  Maybe Glassings is telling him that he should love Iralene. Would that make things better, safer, clearer? He was so sure of himself at that mic telling the truth, and now he’s drowning in doubt. Most of all, he no longer trusts his own judgment. Partridge wants to tell him he doesn’t love Iralene, but he thinks of holding her up and spinning her around, the fake sun shining on her hair. “It doesn’t matter who I love. My life isn’t mine.”

  “Again,” Glassings says, “you didn’t answer the question.”

  “What if I don’t know?”

  “There are things you should simply know.”

  PRESSIA

  HOLLOW REED

  Before Pressia even opens her eyes in the morning, she thinks of Bradwell’s kiss. This is how it’s been every morning since she last saw him. She remembers the feel of his wet lips against hers, his skin, the hardness of his muscles against her chest as he lifted her off the ground and the silkiness of his wings. She wants to stay in that reverie, but she hears a small cough, and when she opens her eyes, she’s startled by a child’s face staring at her. She grips the backpack, which she sleeps with. She’s on the pallet the mothers offered her on the cold ground inside of a small tent. The light is hazy. It’s early morning. The mothers have told her they’ll help, but they haven’t said how or when. A hand ruffles the child’s hair. Pressia looks up and sees a woman looking at her. There are words burned into one cheek, backward, but she can still read them: THE DOGS BARKED LOUDLY. IT WAS ALMOST DARK.

  “Mother Hestra?” She recognizes her from the last time she saw Partridge and Lyda—in the subway car locked underground.

  Mother Hestra nods. “I’m here to take you in.”

  “In where?” For a moment, she thinks that Mother Hestra is going to bring her to the Dome, but that makes no sense.

  “To Our Good Mother,” Mother Hestra says. “Now. No time to waste.”

  In a few minutes, Pressia has the backpack on again and is following Mother Hestra through the woods. Mother Hestra limps, weighted on one side by her child, but she’s oddly agile. Pressia is eating a small hotcake that was cooked over a fire back at the camp. The air is still smoky. The rain has stopped. Pressia knows she has to try to convince Mother Hestra to let her go, but how? She starts with common ground. “Was Lyda taken? One of the mothers told me she was taken into the Dome.”

  “You’ve heard no word from her?” Mother Hestra says.

  “How could I hear from her?”

  “She’s on the inside with Partridge. He’s your brother. He has ways. Doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t even know if she went in on her own or was taken. Last I heard, she was going in with Partridge.” They cross a small brook, jumping from rock to rock.

  “She has her own life. She made her own decision. She wanted to stay.”

  “And then they took her? Against her will?”

  Mother Hestra stops. She breaks off a hollow reed and whistles into it—a low, sad note—and then she hands it to her son, who fiddles with it joyfully.

  “It was during battle. We attacked the Dome. Didn’t you hear?” Mother Hestra says as they begin moving again through the trees.

  Is this why the Dome has fired back? “Is the Dome getting retribution, then? Is that what these killings and fires are about?”

  Mother Hestra uses the trees to push herself along, and Pressia starts to do the same, falling into a quick rhythm.

  “There was a lull, and then their attacks started. We can only guess.”

  “But Willux is dead. Partridge is in charge. How can this be happening?”

  Mother Hestra stops and turns. “Willux is dead?”

  Pressia shouldn’t have said this. She feels the sick twist of a dagger in her gut. This is bad. Very bad. But there’s no taking it back. Mother Hestra’s face is frozen in an intense gaze. Pressia nods.

  “And Partridge is the one who’s sending these Deaths to kill us? Partridge?”

  “I don’t think it’s him. It can’t be!”

  “But he’s in charge,” Mother Hestra says. “You said so.”

  “Don’t tell Our Good Mother,” Pressia pleads.

  “How could I keep this from her? How could I keep it from my fellow sisters?”

  Our Good Mother will be enraged. There’s no telling what she might unleash. She despises all the Deaths but seemed to dislike Partridge with a special vengeance.

  “I just need time. Please, if you—”

  “Hush!” Mother Hestra stiffens. “Follow,” she says, picking up her pace.

  “Please don’t bring me in to Our Good Mother,” Pressia says. “Please. This is important, Mother Hestra. This is life and death.”

  Mother Hestra stops and crouches. She motions for Pressia to do the same. Pressia sits down, her back against a tree. She looks up at the sky—gray, always gray, with dark limbs cutting it up like a fractured piece of glass. She’s a prisoner. She’s failed. “Please, Mother Hestra,” she says again.

  Mother Hestra raises her hands to her mouth and lets out a strange birdcall—a long, soft cooing.

  Pressia feels like crying. She thinks of making a run for it, but she knows that the mothers are well trained. She wouldn’t get far.

  And then there’s a coo in return. It ripples through the woods.

  Pressia grips Mother Hestra’s coat. “Please,” she says again.

  “Shut up,” Mother Hestra says. “I know why you’re in these woods. You’re not looking for dead children, are you? You want in. Into the Dome. I’m going to get you there.”

  “But Our Good Mother…”

  “I will disobey her. I will pay the price. When I heard you were here, I volunteered to be the prison guard to bring you in. As Partridge’s sister, you are the only one who can go in and expect any protection, though that could also make you a target. It must be you.”

  “How did you know I wanted to go in?”

  “You’re going in for Lyda,” Mother Hestra says. “She can’t have her baby inside the Dome. It wouldn’t be safe. It wouldn’t be right. She belongs with us.”

  “Her baby?” Pressia blurts out. She’s stunned. There must be some mistake.

  “Lyda’s baby,” Mother Hestra says, confused that Pressia doesn’t know. “Partridge is the father.”

  “What?”

  “She’s pregnant. With child. Not too far along.”

  Partridge and Lyda are going to have a baby? “I didn’t know.” Is Lyda scared? Is she alone? Pressia wants to see her and tell her…what? That everything is going to be okay? Will it be? She can’t lie to her. The voices throughout the city, calling for their lost children—Lyda and Partridge will have a child of their own to fe
ar for, to fight for, to call out for…

  “How could you not know?” Mother Hestra says. “Isn’t that why you’re going in—to save her?”

  “I’m going in because I have what’s needed to cure us. If I can get it to scientists in the Dome, we can undo fusings without side effects. We can make the survivors whole again. All of us.” She looks at the child on Mother Hestra’s leg. He’s watching Pressia, listening, gripping the reed with tears quivering in his eyes.

  Mother Hestra’s cheeks flush. She clenches her jaw. “There is no cure for this. None!”

  “But there is!”

  “I thought you were in these woods because you were preparing to save a sister, a sister with child. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve held a baby from one of our own? Do you know? This child is our new beginning!”

  “You were going to bring me in. Do it. Now that I know, I’ll do my best to get Lyda out. I promise.”

  The coo comes again—closer this time. Mother Hestra looks up in the direction it came from. “If Our Good Mother knows that Willux is dead, she will sense weakness. And if she knows Partridge is in charge, she will want to kill him all the more.”

  “And if she attacks,” Pressia whispers, “it will only cause more deaths, and Lyda’s in there. If you give me time, I can go in and try to get her out before you attack.” She doesn’t dare tell Mother Hestra about the bacterium that can take down the Dome. She needs Mother Hestra to be calm, focused.

  Mother Hestra grabs hold of Pressia’s arm. “You promise you’ll get her out.”

  “I promise to try.”

  Mother Hestra presses her fists against her forehead, clenches her eyes. “Twelve mothers have died at that post where you slept—just that one post alone. Seven of them had children—they’re also dead. The mass grave is full. They’ve started another. Partridge’s father hadn’t brutalized us enough?”

  “We don’t know that Partridge did this. We don’t.”

  “Kill him,” Mother Hestra says. “Get inside and kill him.”

  Pressia shakes her head. “He didn’t orchestrate this new attack. He wouldn’t. He knows us. He cares about us.”

  “He’s in charge. This is what happened. These are facts.”

  “I have to have faith in him.”

  “Deaths only squander faith. They don’t deserve our trust.”

  The cooing comes again, louder, more urgent.

  “I can’t kill my brother. I won’t. But I will try to get Lyda out.” She remembers the last glimpse she had of Lyda, when they were in the Deadlands about to be executed. Is this where she belongs? In the wilds? If she wants out, Pressia will help her in every way she can. “Have faith in me.”

  Mother Hestra’s son wraps his arms around his mother’s waist, holding tightly. She kisses the top of his head. “We will pay,” she says. “When Our Good Mother knows all, we will pay.”

  Pressia feels a pulse of anger banging inside of her. “That’s not fair.” She looks at the child. “I can’t ask you to do this.”

  The cooing echoes again.

  “We will survive. It’s how we were built.” Mother Hestra grabs Pressia’s hand, entwines her fingers. “When you see Lyda, tell her that we worry. She was like one of my own to me. My very own.” Her son looks up at her, and she cups his chin lightly, as if to say, Don’t worry. I love you most.

  And then Mother Hestra lifts her hands to her mouth again, and her coo floats into the morning air, reverberating through the woods.

  LYDA

  GLOWING

  Lyda’s dressed as if she’s a wedding guest. Her dress is royal blue taffeta, hemmed to the middle of her shins. She’s wearing high heels that have been stained to match the dress and her blue pocketbook, which only has one thing in it—Freedle, swaddled loosely in a hand towel. She wanted one piece of the outside world with her. Freedle’s a comfort. She knows she’ll need it.

  She sits on the sofa, stiffly, next to Chandry Culp, the woman in charge of teaching her to knit. She arranged for all of this and is here with her husband, Axel Culp, and their daughter, Vienna—as if they’re old family friends gathered together for some important public address.

  Vienna doesn’t like the dip. “It’s too spicy!” She doesn’t like the carrots. “The texture isn’t realistic!” She doesn’t like the way her mother did her hair. “It’s too fluffy!”

  Lyda wants to find the right moment to claim she feels weak and nauseous and politely retire to her bedroom. Honestly, she is tired. She hasn’t been sleeping much. Every time she dozes off, she wakes up minutes later, gasping for breath as if there isn’t enough oxygen in the air, as if she’s suffocating.

  Why do they think she wants to watch Partridge marry Iralene? Is this a test? Is she supposed to prove that her relationship with Partridge is over, that all will be as they expect it to be? She feels bullied by the dress and the dip, even by Mr. Culp who walks around saying, “Nice place you got here. Isn’t this nice, Chandry?”

  The television is showing the people as they arrive, couples with various titles walking into the church in gowns and tuxedos. There are guards here and there, lining the church. But otherwise, it’s all beautiful—flowers draped everywhere, ribbon, red carpets. Lyda cradles her pocketbook in her lap, Freedle nestled within it.

  She feels sick. Yes, she wants to be the one to marry Partridge, of course. But not this way. Not with all of this pomp and grandeur, while knowing how the people on the outside scrape for basic survival. It turns her stomach. She says, “I think I’m going to have to go lie down for a bit.”

  “What?” Chandry says. “No, no. She isn’t here yet!”

  “Are we expecting someone else?”

  Vienna says, “It’s supposed to be a surprise.” She rolls her eyes.

  Lyda becomes alarmed. “Who are we expecting?”

  “Let me check on her progress.” Chandry rushes to the front door to talk to the guards.

  Mr. Culp picks up an empty candlestick holder. “I like this!” he says. “Quite nice!”

  Lyda walks over to Vienna. “Tell me who’s coming.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Please.”

  “Don’t you get how surprises work?” Vienna says.

  “I don’t like surprises,” Lyda whispers.

  “She’s coming!” Chandry says. “She’s coming right now!”

  The door is wide open, and the guards stand on either side of it. Chandry steps back and opens one hand dramatically as Lyda’s mother appears in the doorframe.

  “Mrs. Mertz!” Chandry says, half-proud and half-relieved.

  Lyda’s mother looks small and disoriented. She stands there and blinks. At first, she glances around the room, unable to look at Lyda. This is how it was at the rehabilitation center too. In fact, that was the last place she saw her mother. She was so cold to Lyda, hiding behind her official role as a clinician. But she isn’t in that role now. She’s also wearing a dress—one of the dresses she’s worn to church for years.

  “Mom?” Lyda says.

  Lyda’s mother steps forward. She lifts her gaze until finally she meets Lyda’s eyes, crimping her lips and drawing in her breath as if bracing for something—what does she expect? What has she been told? Does she know Lyda’s pregnant?

  Lyda doesn’t know if she’s supposed to hug her mother or not. And her mother seems equally unsure. “Lyda, dear,” she says softly.

  And Lyda feels a rush of love that seems to buoy her. She’s missed her mother more deeply than she let herself admit. She sets her pocketbook down carefully on an end table, keeping Freedle safe and sound, and walks to her mother quickly, wrapping her arms around her neck. Her mother stiffens but then pats her back. “I didn’t think you’d come to see me. I wasn’t sure you even knew I was here.”

  “I know everything,” her mother says. But Lyda isn’t sure what version of everything she’s been fed.

  Lyda squeezes her mother’s hands. “Let’s go talk—just the two of us,” Lyda
says and then turns to Chandry, Mr. Culp, and Vienna. “Do you mind if we have some privacy?”

  “No, no!” Lyda’s mother says. “It’s okay. There’s no need to disrupt the get-together.” She walks to the television. “It’s going to be a lovely event for all of us to share”—she looks at Lyda—“and accept.”

  Lyda feels like she’s been slapped. Her ears are ringing. The nursery. She wants to retreat to the nursery, feel the weight of a spear, the ash on her skin. Those things are real. Her mother’s retribution is always made of air. She can’t ever pin it down. She can’t ever accuse her of anything concretely. But now Lyda knows why she’s here: to tell Lyda that her relationship with Partridge is over. This wedding isn’t a fake. It’s going to stand. There’s no reversing it—only accepting it. Her mother is here to help her accept this ending.

  Lyda wants this to be a dream. She wants to wake up—gasping for air. But it isn’t a dream.

  She can’t speak. She reaches out and grips the back of a chair.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Vienna says. “You don’t look good.”

  “It’s starting!” Chandry shouts and turns to the TV. She pulls a tissue from her purse and presses it to her cheek. “Here she comes! Oh my!”

  “Doesn’t she look nice!” Mr. Culp says.

  The whole little Culp family huddles together in front of the glowing screen, with Lyda’s mother standing in front of Mr. Culp. There’s orchestral music blaring from the television. Lyda imagines Iralene in a long white gown, the audience rising up.

  They’re all gaping at the television except Lyda’s mother, who’s looking at Lyda now, gazing at her. “Come and watch,” she says.

  Lyda shakes her head.

  Her mother says with no anger in her voice—just resignation—“Lyda, don’t be stubborn. This is what you must do.”

  Lyda says, “No, thank you.”

  Her mother walks over to her. “Lyda,” she says softly, “It’s going to be okay. You and the baby. All of it. I will be here for you now. This is my new role.”

  “Is it a paying gig? How much did they offer you?” Lyda says sharply.