Perfect Ruin (4 page)

“Says the girl who still sleeps with the light on after I tell her a harmless ghost story.”

“That was years ago,” I say. “I’m not a baby, you know.”

“I am certain it was only last season,” Lex says, and his voice deepens when he adds, “The tale of the ghost birds that flew into the city and pecked everyone to death.”

“I don’t recall leaving any lights on,” I say, and am impressed by my cool tone.

“Don’t listen to him,” Alice says.

“Do they sell sweets at the tea shop?” I say. “I skipped dinner and now I’m hungry.”

“I’m sure they do.”

Lex says something about my teeth rotting out of my head and how the only way to stop me from crying as a baby was to give me sugar water, and the conversation moves into the comfort of trivial things. But in the window, among the clouds, I see the reflection of the girl in the blue tie. I can’t shake the idea that she looks familiar, even though I can’t remember ever seeing her in the city.

The train stops and Alice and I guide Lex onto the platform, keeping him out of the way of passengers entering and exiting. I feel a tug at the back of my shirt, and when I turn around, the girl in the blue tie is holding a silver star earring in her palm. “You dropped this,” she says. Her eyelids are smeared with pink glitter, and it isn’t until after she has walked away that I realize why she looks so familiar. She’s a younger version of the murdered girl. They could be sisters. And they probably are.

The jumper group is held behind a closed door in a recreational room of the courthouse that used to be a holding cell for criminals decades ago. Even spouses, siblings, and parents aren’t allowed inside.

Alice straightens the collar of Lex’s shirt and kisses him. “Handsome,” she accuses. “I’ll be right outside when it’s time to go home.”

“I’ll be waiting, gorgeous,” he says.

“Gorgeous,” she says, exhaling a little laugh. “For all you know, I’ve colored my face green.”

“Then you’d be gorgeous and green,” he says.

She does her best not to show it, but it’s hard for her to relinquish her husband into the care of a fellow jumper, who ushers him to the circle of chairs. They’ve always shared everything, and this is something he never talks about. There’s a camaraderie among these group members that never leaves the room.

The girl in the blue tie slips past us into the room and finds a seat. She looks so small and out of place there among the others. Most of the jumpers are old enough to have grown cynical about our little world, discontent. I’ve never heard of a child jumping. The others are disfigured and disabled from their attempts, but she looks polished and thin in her pressed uniform. Her hair, the same sweetgold blond as the murdered girl’s, is held back by a white band with a bow on one side. Someone hands her a paper cup and she manages a polite if despondent smile.

“Okay,” Alice says, putting her hand on my back and guiding me toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.” We pass others who linger in the hall, waiting for their loved ones while reading or talking amongst one another. This is where Alice would have waited in her pretty dress, and when she went home she would have simply hung it in the closet again. I don’t know that I can ever forgive Lex for squandering her. And yet she has never complained about having to care for him. She could go out more if she wanted to; if he’s in the throes of a novel, he probably won’t even notice. But she mostly just leaves for work in the greenhouses.

A patrolmen opens the door for us. “Ladies.” He nods as we pass by. “Be safe out there tonight.”

The orange glow of street lanterns outlines the cobblestones with shadows. Yet in the distance, the glasslands shimmer in the moonlight.

“That little girl is part of the jumper group?” I ask, once we’re beyond the earshot of the patrolmen.

“I’ve seen her the last few times,” Alice says.

“So she’s jumped?”

“She must have …” Alice’s voice is trailing off. She takes a deep breath and says, “Look at that moon, Morgan. It’s so close. As if we could just walk right up to the edge and reach out and take it.” She closes one eye and holds up her hand, balancing the moon on her palm.

I hook my elbow around hers. I don’t like what she has said. I don’t like the thought of her crossing the tracks and chasing the moon to Internment’s edge. People go mad there. They see all of that sky and nothingness and they lose themselves.

“Is this the tea shop?” I say.

“Oh! Yes, it is. Look, the sign is shaped like an actual teacup. Isn’t that quaint?”

It would be, if not for the patrolman standing at the entrance.

P
EN FIXES THE HEM OF MY RED VELVET glove that’s starting to unroll from my elbow. “You look classic,” she says, and then holds up her own blue gloves with a look of disdain. “Aren’t these archaic? They’re my mother’s. She used to wear them on dates with my father. You know, back when Internment was still part of the ground.”

“I think you’re a vision,” Thomas says, coming up behind her, gripping the overhead handle as the shuttle begins to move.

She looks over her shoulder at him, and the sunlight catches the shadows of her neck and collarbone in a way that makes her seem more woman than girl. “I thought for sure you’d missed the shuttle.”

“I caught it just as the doors were closing,” he says, and looks at me. “I take it your other will be joining us shortly?”

“We’re taking the train to his section and walking from there,” I say, feeling strange about the word he has used: “other.” He likes to talk like a period actor; he’s always reading romantic classics—a woman on the cover with an elaborately floral hat, looking faint as a man in a tuxedo steadies her. Things of that nature.

When the shuttle jolts and pushes Thomas toward her, Pen swats at him, complaining that he’ll make her hat go crooked. She’s wearing a candlebox hat that has been dyed the same color as her gloves. Candles come in small, cylindrical stiff paper boxes that can be taken to a clothes maker to be recycled into a hat. They’re dyed desired colors, given a brim, and affixed to a band so that the hat will sit firmly on one side of the head.

They look ridiculous on me. Few girls are bold enough to pull them off, but Pen is the sort of girl who can wear anything.

Thomas smiles at her averted face. “I’ll have your heart yet, Margaret Atmus.”

“You already have it.” She holds up her hand, betrothal band gleaming in the light. “Not that I had any say in the matter. And you know I hate when you call me that.”

When we make it to the train, I notice that it isn’t very crowded, which is strange for the weekend. “Looks like a lot of people decided to walk today,” Thomas says.

Pen flattens her dress against her knees, indifferent to his arm around her shoulders.

“I’ve been reading a peculiar little story,” Thomas says, looking at me because he knows Pen won’t humor him with interest.

“What about?” I say.

“It’s about the people of the ground trying to reach us. They craft a sort of machine and harness it to birds.”

“Birds couldn’t lift something that heavy,” Pen says. We don’t know very much about birds—they’ve never flown so high as Internment, but we’ve seen images of them taken with the scope. Skinny white blurs traveling alone or as beads in a necklace of
V
s.

“Well then, you’ve figured out the conflict,” he says. “Anyway, they don’t make it. The story was really more about their trying to reach us. Some think they are, and others say we’re nothing more to them than a giant rock in the sky. Perhaps they think we’re a dusty moon.”

“I wonder about that all the time,” I say.

“Don’t get Morgan started on the ground,” Pen says, rising as the train rolls to a stop. “She’ll be lost in thought for the rest of the day, and I need someone to whisper with if this play is no good.”

Basil spots us as we’re stepping out onto the platform. The gold trim of his jacket matches the flecks of light in his brown eyes. Pen calls it a shame that my eyes aren’t dominant, but I think it would be nice if my children look like Basil. He holds his arm to me, and I look at my velvet glove against his gray suit, imagining we’re figures in a very old image. Though I know I shouldn’t, I imagine that the steps leading down off the platform will go all the way down the sky until we reach the ground.

“How are you?” he asks, so close that his breath reaches the nape of my neck.

“I’ll feel better once they’ve caught the person responsible,” I admit. “My father came home last night with an extra bolt for our door. Every time I look at it, I see that girl’s face.”

“A lot of people in my building are installing locks, too.” He frowns. “They’ll find whoever’s behind this. Internment is only so big. There aren’t many places to hide.”

That’s what has me so afraid. I’ve always liked the smallness of Internment, always liked lying in bed at night and hearing the trains rush by, always on time. But now it’s starting to feel smaller, as though every day since Daphne Leander’s murder has crumbled the edges a bit more, and the city is closing in on me.

Even the seats in the theater feel smaller and closer together, the dim lights getting dimmer.

“Are you okay?” Pen says. “Your cheeks are bright red.”

Basil touches my forehead. “Do you feel sick?” His touch is supposed to comfort me, but all I want is to get away from him, to get away from this air that everyone else is breathing.

“I need to use the water room,” I say.

“I’ll go with you,” Pen says.

“No,” I say, too quickly. “No, you might miss the opening. I’ll be fast, I promise.”

I can see that she’s wary, but she doesn’t try to stop me as I shuffle down the aisle.

With all of the shows about to start, the lobby is empty aside from the ticket vendors, who pay no mind as I stumble toward the water rooms. But when I push the door open, I find that I’m not alone.

Though she’s not in uniform, I recognize the little girl from last night. She’s kneeling on the edge of the sink, tacking a piece of paper over the mirror. But she stops when she sees me, stumbles to her feet, and backs against the wall.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say.

There’s a piece of paper over each of the mirrors. A quick glance and I can see that they’re select passages from Daphne Leander’s essay. All of them are handwritten. Typewriters are a rare luxury afforded to those who write for a living; a past king once considered making them a household item, but decided against it. He said that if words could be easily printed and erased, we would lose our appreciation for what we wrote.

I’d like to ask her about the pages, but she runs past me and pushes her way through the door.

“Wait!” I run after her.

She’s quick, but so am I, and I catch up to her on the sidewalk outside the theater, where she has come to a stop. She doesn’t seem out of breath, and I’m trying to figure out why she stopped, but then I follow her gaze to the building at the end of the block, engulfed in flames.

She looks at me, and her eyes are full of so much pain that it astounds me. They’re the same as the murdered girl’s eyes, and yet different somehow.

“It’s only going to get worse,” she says.

That’s the jumper’s code, if Lex’s similar outlook is any indication.

A patrolman is running from the theater, shouting for us to get back inside. She doesn’t move, though, and I grab her arm and pull her along. She doesn’t resist, but she watches the flames over her shoulder. It was one of Internment’s oldest buildings, back when they were still made of wood as opposed to stone. Over the centuries it has been everything from a prison, back when those still existed, to a recycling plant. In my lifetime it has been only a flower shop. Alice has taken me there dozens of times.

It’s only a few paces back to the theater, but before we’ve reached the doors, the sky has changed. Ash is heavy on the air and it’s as though something has covered the sun. Even the patrolman has stopped to watch. Sirens begin as distant warnings, but soon they’re screaming as the emergency vehicles rush toward the flames.

The girl’s arm is still in my grip and she lets me bring her inside, but then she twists away, presses her hands to the glass doors and watches.

The lobby is crowded now, everyone rushing to windows, calling out the names of their friends. “Are you here with anyone?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be practicing my music.”

“Come on, then,” I say. “You can come with me. I’m going to find my friends and make sure they’re okay.”

“I don’t know you,” she says.

“Morgan Stockhour,” I say. “There, now you do.”

The room has gotten very loud around us. A woman screams.

The girl looks up at me, hesitating. Some pink glitter has clumped in her eyelashes.

“I’m Amy,” she says.

“Morgan!” Somewhere in the melee, Pen raises her gloved arm. She twists away from Thomas, fighting him and shouldering her way to me. She crashes into me, squeezing me so hard that my feet almost come away from the floor. “What’s happening? They stopped the play, and …”

She sees the smoke through the glass doors for the first time. Her mouth is open and breathless. She pales.

“The flower shop caught fire,” I say, though the words don’t do justice to what I just saw. I should be panicking like everyone around me. I should be frightened. But I feel the same as I did after watching the broadcast, like none of it is real.

“Your parents will be worried,” I tell Amy.

“They won’t notice I’m gone.” She seems like the type who can slip in and out of a place unnoticed, which is likely how she snuck into this theater without formal attire.

Basil wraps his arm around my waist from behind. Thomas does the same to Pen, and for once she seems grateful that he’s there to hold her. Amy stands between us, and we all watch the clouds and the sun get swallowed whole.

It feels like hours before the flames are extinguished. Patrolmen fill the lobby, escorting us from the building to the shuttle in droves. Pen lets Thomas hold on to her, and Basil hasn’t taken his arm from me since we were reunited. Amy walks a pace ahead of me, tugging at the ring on the chain around her neck.

“Where do you live?” Basil asks her as the five of us cram onto a shuttle bench meant to hold four.

“Section three,” she says.

“I’m in two,” he says. “But it’s a short walk back for me. I’ll see you home.”

“You don’t have to,” she says. “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

“Yes, right, okay, we’re all old enough,” Pen snaps. “But in case you haven’t noticed, Internment has kind of gone into a complete state of lunacy.”

“I know that,” Amy says, and looks sharply out the window, where the smoke has turned the city into an old image.

“Are you frightened?” Thomas asks Pen.

She’s looking at her lap, but he tilts her chin and she meets his eyes.

“I won’t ever let anything happen to you, you know.”

She nods, leans her forehead against his.

For all their arguing, they have kissed. It first happened several months ago. He kept dropping hints and she decided to just be done with it. It wasn’t terrible, she told me. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible. I had a hard time believing it—she’s always evading him—but I’m starting to see that there’s a reason they were betrothed. There’s always a reason.

Basil grips my hand as the shuttle comes to a stop. “It’s going to be chaotic. Don’t let go of me even if people rush between us,” he says. With my free hand, I grab on to Pen and we rise to our feet.

An instant too late, I remember that Amy is behind me. In that instant, she dodges under Pen’s and my interlocked hands and disappears into the crowd.

“Amy!”

“Let her go,” Pen says. “Where did you find such a strange child, anyway?” She’s trying to act nonchalant but the fear is still in her eyes.

I’m scanning the crowd for Amy; with the patrolmen steering us all right onto the waiting train, there’s nowhere for her to go, and I still want to ask her about the essay.

But it’s taking all my efforts to hold on to Basil and Pen; I’ve never seen Internment in such a panic, and other worries start to invade my mind. My father is patrolling today; that means he must be out in this mess. And Alice will be out running errands; she frequents the flower shop, has a side job designing event bouquets.

And what started the fire to begin with?

Amy said it was only going to get worse. I see this panic all around me, while news of Daphne Leander’s murder is still fresh, and I cannot fathom what worse should look like.

By the time we make it to our seats on the train, Pen isn’t the only one with tears in her eyes. Other passengers have the same frightened expression.

Even Basil is looking worriedly at the city through the window. A patrolman is standing at the head of the car, instructing us not to check in on family and friends, to step off the train at our appropriate sections and go straight home. The train will stop for an extra two minutes on each platform to ensure everyone has a chance to exit the overcrowded cars in time.

“Something is happening,” Basil says, “isn’t it?”

“I’m sure it was only an accident,” Thomas says. “That building was so old that it has never been properly outfitted with electricity. Most of the rooms were lit by flame lanterns. One of them probably tipped over.”

“Do you think so?” Pen says.

“I’m almost certain.”

None of us believes it, but we don’t have the nerve to say so.

“Your mascara is running,” Pen says. “Here.” She rubs her gloved thumb under my eyelid.

“Thanks,” I say, though from the black smear on her glove I suspect she’s made it worse.

When the train stops in our section, Basil squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry I can’t walk you in,” he says.

“I’ll be fine; my building is right there,” I tell him, wishing desperately that I wasn’t about to leave him behind. “Stay safe.”

I don’t know what it is—the noise or the distant smell of the ashes or the fear—but I get the thought that I’d like to kiss him. I lean forward and press my lips against his forehead, pleasantly surprised by the softness and the warmth of his skin.

I don’t get a chance to see his reaction; Thomas is pulling Pen, and Pen is pulling me.

We can still smell the fire, though it happened several sections away and has since been extinguished. The blue of the sky is still up there, if a bit obscured, and I might have started to feel relief if only there weren’t a patrolman forcing me down the steps.