Partridge has ordered more guards to stand watch at her door. A small army is collected there now. Is he afraid someone is going to attack her? Or is he making sure she can never leave?
She’s worked hard in that small room, and now she lies in bed, clean and sweet smelling, her hair damp from a midday shower. She writes Partridge another letter. She’s written so many she can’t keep track. She gives them to Beckley whenever she sees him—every few days he takes a shift—but he never has any for her.
“What does he say when you give them to him?” she’s asked.
“He smiles and slips them in his pocket—to read later, I guess.”
“I don’t understand why he doesn’t write back.”
“He’s busy. You know—plans.”
Wedding plans. Yes, she knows.
Partridge,
When are you coming back? I am becoming
What is she becoming? She doesn’t know. It seems most honest to just say that
she’s becoming
. The becoming is what matters maybe more than the result.
She thinks of writing him that she’s nesting—a term she learned in the girls’ academy in an infant-care class, one that Chandry uses often when she comes for knitting lessons. Lyda likes the word because when she was in the girls’ academy, she loved walking through the aviary and watching the birds fortify their nests. Her nesting instincts might not be what Partridge expects, but she does feel like she’s building a place for herself and this child—just for them. She feels safe in the nursery. But lying here, in her own room, on her fresh sheets, having combed her hair smooth, she’s vulnerable.
Something’s coming. Things are unstable. It’s not just that Willux has died. It’s as if the air is agitated, combustible. And while Partridge is out there, busy with his wedding plans, he doesn’t even notice. No one seems to. The guards stand stiffly outside of her door. Chandry comes and goes. Sometimes Lyda looks out the window and sees people on the street, bustling with packages, walking miniature dogs, pushing strollers.
It’s almost completely back to normal—like the truth was never spoken.
Sometimes
, she writes Partridge,
I feel like the fire is inside of me. I don’t know what I’m becoming. But I think it’s to help me meet some future I can’t imagine, but a future that’s coming all the same.
When will I see you again? Ever?
Love,
Lyda
T
he mothers emerge from the woods one at a time. A bush becomes a body. A woman jumps from the thin limbs of a tree. It’s dark, and their bodies—alive with the restlessness of their children—are hard to make out. One of the mothers says, “Take her to camp. Guard her closely. We’ll send word to Our Good Mother of her presence.” Pressia, still staked to the tree by the dart through her coat, isn’t sure what Our Good Mother might think of her being one of their prisoners.
Two mothers walk up to her, one in a woolen cap and the other with white hair.
Pressia hopes that they don’t confiscate her backpack. That’s what matters most.
The one with white hair pulls the blade from the tree—leaving a fresh rip in Pressia’s coat—and tucks the dart back into a small bag strapped over her shoulder. “This way,” she says. “Hands on your head.”
Pressia walks between the two mothers. Her arms start to ache. She can see their children now—one on his mother’s shoulder, another curved across her mother’s chest.
“You’ve kept these woods from getting burned,” Pressia whispers.
They nod, walking her past a small camouflaged lean-to. Inside, Pressia glimpses strange contraptions—catapults on wheels?—and baskets of what look like grenades. “I made some of those from the robotic spiders sent down from the Dome.”
“And we continued the effort,” the woman with white hair says. “We’re the first line of defense. We take out the new Special Forces when they step out and descend, when they’re still disoriented.” The mother stops at a large barrel filled with guns—freshly polished. “We gut them for their guns, clean them off. The stockpile is growing.”
Pressia remembers the Special Forces boy—not Pure, a wretch. “Aren’t some of them young?”
“They send their boys off to die. We comply.” The mother with white hair squints at Pressia. “Why are you here?”
Pressia doesn’t want to tell them. The mothers are erratic—calm and then murderous, capable of most anything. “I was looking for someone,” she says.
“Who?” the mother with white hair says, and Pressia wonders if the woman in the wool cap has a voice at all. Is she mute?
“The children who were Purified in the Dome, especially one named Wilda.”
The mother in the wool cap makes a clucking noise with her tongue as if Pressia’s said the wrong thing and the mother is rebuking her.
“Stop looking. It’s a waste of time,” the mother with white hair says.
“Because they’re dead or because they’re hidden away somewhere?”
“Some questions are better left unanswered,” the mother says. “Plus, you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re not telling the whole truth, which is lying.”
The mother in the wool cap clucks her tongue again.
The mother with the white hair reaches up and pulls one of the few remaining leaves from a branch overhead. She says, “This is a season of death. We are not sure there will be another spring.”
“What do you mean?” Pressia says. “The earth has endured this much. Of course there will be spring.” She thinks of Bradwell saying,
If we don’t see each other again…
“After they took Lyda, we decided we would never back down. Some say it’s a death wish. We don’t wish for death. We’re already dead.”
“Took Lyda? She was going into the Dome with Partridge. She wasn’t taken. She went on her own…”
“She was taken!” the mother with the white hair says.
“Mmmhmm,” the mother in the wool cap purrs from the back of her throat.
Pressia isn’t sure what to believe. The mothers sometimes tell themselves the stories they want to believe. Pressia can’t blame them. But right now, she wishes she understood. “What happened? Tell me.”
The mother in the wool cap shakes her head and glares at the other mother.
“You can’t be trusted,” the mother with the white hair says.
“But I need to know. Lyda’s my friend. She’s like a sister to me. You understand?” The mothers have built their lives around the notion of sisterhood. They exchange a glance.
“No,” the mother with the white hair says. “We will tell you nothing.”
They walk through the forest, deeper and deeper, until it’s almost completely dark. They come to a small camp of lean-tos. The mothers lead Pressia to one of the tiny tents.
The mother with the white hair says, “You can drop your hands now.”
Pressia rubs her arms, tingling from the lack of blood. The mother in the wool cap sees the doll head, reaches out and cups it in her pale, raw hands.
The mother with the white hair nods and says, “It’s like she’s one of us.”
The mother in the wool cap purrs again.
“One of you? Why do you say that?” Pressia says. She’s nothing like the mothers. She isn’t a woman who’s been deserted, and she never will be. She has Bradwell—here, now, and beyond. The mothers scare her. They always have. Their underlying strength is shot through with something vicious. It’s how they’ve stayed alive. “It’s just a doll.”
“It’s part of you, isn’t it?” the mother with the white hair says. “It defines you completely, and then again it doesn’t define you at all—like motherhood. You’ll be one of us. It’s a matter of time.”
Pressia pulls the doll head to her chest but doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to be part of this tribe of women. She wants to get through this and build a life with Bradwell.
If we don’t see each other again
—the thought alone scares her.
The mother with the white hair says, “We will be standing guard. Don’t try to leave, or the next time we shoot, we will aim at your heart.”
J
ust a couple of days later, Partridge and Iralene are at a picnic surrounded by a low gate. Where did the gate come from? Was it put up overnight? It’s the kind of gate that was used to enclose people’s front yards during the Before inside of the larger gated communities—gates within gates. It’s in place now so people know not to get too close. This picnic—though unannounced—has a growing audience.
“Act natural,” says one of the women in Iralene’s entourage as she fixes the collar of Iralene’s dress.
“Act natural?” Partridge says. “Isn’t that an oxymoron? I’m acting and so it’s not natural.”
The woman sniffs and walks off.
These women were the first to gather at the gate, but soon there are over a hundred people. “Who knew anyone would want to spend their time watching me eat a triangulated sandwich and sip lemonade?” Partridge only picks at his food, shoves it around on the paper plate.
“Not
you
,” Iralene corrects. “
Us
.”
“Us,” he says. “Sorry.” He thinks of Lyda—that’s the
us
he’s supposed to be a part of.
“Now I know how fish feel at the aquarium,” Partridge says.
“Don’t tap the glass!” Iralene says.
He looks at the upscale apartment buildings surrounding the park. One of them is where he stayed when he was first brought back into the Dome—where, on one of the lower floors, there are people suspended in time, each in their own dark, icy capsule. “You know we’re not far from
them
,” he says.
“I know,” she says so quickly and unemotionally that he’s not sure if she really knows what he’s talking about. She lifts a strawberry. “It looks real. Doesn’t it?”
“Isn’t it real?”
“I think it’s edible.”
“That’s different from real,” he says.
She bites and the crowd—people who mainly survive on soytex pills and supplements—seems to lean in. She smiles and says, “Mmmmm.” Then she lifts the strawberry and holds it to Partridge’s lips. “Eat it.” He wants to ask her if she’s still on board as a guide among the capsules.
He opens his mouth. She pulls the strawberry away, and then as he starts to protest, she fits it into his mouth so his teeth bite into the cool sweetness. The crowd murmurs happily.
“You know that if I tapped your nose right now, they’d erupt in
awww
s,” she says. “We have a lot of power.”
“I’ve never had less power in my life.”
Partridge glances at the crowd. He catches the eye of the young woman who told him to act natural. She waves a cautionary finger at him; he’s not supposed to acknowledge the crowd because it makes them uncomfortable. And they do, in fact, shift their feet and look away.
He turns back to Iralene.
“We do have a lot of power, Partridge.” She taps him on the nose, and the crowd awwws—maybe led by the entourage, but the awing is considerable. It makes him nervous—the immediacy of it.
He lies back, as if he’s at a real picnic, arms crossed under his head, staring up at the false sky—all the better to pretend the audience isn’t there, surrounding them.
Iralene lies back too. She rests her head on his chest, nuzzling under his chin.
“Your friends hate me,” he whispers. “Aren’t I supposed to be the good guy?”
She whispers back, “They think you’re spoiled and shallow and cruel.”
“Wow.
I’m
spoiled and shallow? I could say the same of them.”
“They think you’ve had everything handed to you on a silver platter.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard the complaint.” The academy kids always thought he had it better than they did—Willux’s son. Weed was just accusing him of this, in so many words, too. And then when he escaped the Dome and was on the outside, he looked incredibly spoiled to Pressia and Bradwell and, well, everyone he met.
“And cruel,” she whispers. “You didn’t react to that.”
“I
am
cruel. They’re right about that,” he says, keeping his voice low.
Iralene lifts her head and gazes at him. “You’re not cruel. They don’t know you like I know you.”
“I’m failing everyone I know, everyone I care about.”
“Even me?”
“Yes, you. I care about you, Iralene. You know that.”
“I haven’t forgotten my promise,” she whispers. “The favor for a favor.”
“You have a plan?” Now he knows why she picked this spot. She’s very well aware of how close it is to the building with the capsules.
“I brought a radio. You’ll have to dance with me to make this work.”
“That’s part of the plan? I have to dance in front of all these people?”
She nods. “You have to dance and pick me up and spin me around. Beckley is going to help. And I have someone on the inside—an expert—waiting.”
Damn. “Dancing? Can we do this any other way?”
She shakes her head and smiles. “Nope. It’s part of the plan.”
She sits up, reaches into the oversized canvas bag, and pulls out a small radio. The crowd whispers among themselves restlessly, as if this is just what they’ve been waiting for. She turns it on and fiddles with the dial. A song comes in clear. It sounds like the dreamy plinking music of the old amusement park he went to as a kid. What was it called? Crazy John-Johns. He remembers the merry-go-round, the roller coaster, the sweet candy swirled airily on a paper stick.
And then there are drums.
He knows what he’s supposed to do. The dancing has to be his idea. He stands up and extends his hand. She takes it, and he pulls her to her feet. They step into the grass. He lifts one hand and puts the other on the small of her back. The song is happy and sad at the same time. The singer wants to be older, wants to live with his girlfriend, wants to be able to say goodnight to her and then sleep with her. The last time Partridge danced was with Lyda. They were in the academy cafeteria, which had been transformed for the dance with star decals pasted on the ceiling. He remembers the way she smelled—like honey—and the feel of the silk of her dress and beneath it, her ribs. That was when they first kissed.