The Boundless Sublime (12 page)

The third building was tucked away in a corner of the property, behind a second car park that was still concreted over. A tangle of weeds choked the edges of it, as well as broken bricks and bits of concrete and office furniture that had been dumped there. Little sunlight reached that part of the complex, so the building looked mildewy and somehow sinister.

Lib’s eyes flickered over to the dark building, and a frown creased her forehead. ‘C Block,’ she said shortly. ‘We pack and store the water bottles in there. Also the laboratory is there, but it’s out of bounds, as is the Monkey House at the rear of the building.’

I opened my mouth to ask what on earth a Monkey House was, but Lib continued. ‘Over there is the courtyard where we gather every morning before breakfast. After dinner we meet in the warehouse for Family Time.’

I looked at the people working in the garden plot. Nobody had come over to greet us. I didn’t recognise any of them. There was no sign of Fox. Grey rain started to drizzle from the sky. I shivered. This didn’t feel right.

A door in one of the buildings opened, and Stan came bouncing over to us.

‘Ruby!’ he said, enfolding me in a big hug. ‘Kiddo, it is so great to see you here. I can’t wait to finish the discussion we were having the other day about moral relativism.’

I relaxed a little. The Institute looked grim, but who cared what it looked like? It was the people inside I’d come to see.

Stan reached out and took my backpack. ‘You won’t be needing this.’

‘But all my stuff is in there,’ I said.

‘It’s just stuff,’ Stan said, his white hair swinging as he shrugged. ‘It ties you to the world. Holds you down. To be truly free, you gotta let it all go.’

‘What will I wear?’

‘We’ll provide you with everything you need,’ said Lib. ‘Don’t worry, if you decide to leave, all your belongings will be returned to you. Do you have a mobile phone?’

My shoulders tensed, and I considered lying. ‘Yes.’

Stan held out his hand. ‘Give it up,’ he said. ‘Those things give you cancer.’

‘But my mum …’

‘Kiddo,’ said Stan. ‘Let it go. Trust in the process. Be open to all the possibilities of life. Don’t let the rest of the world make your choices for you.’

I pulled my phone from my pocket and hesitated. ‘I can get it back if I need it? If there’s an emergency?’

‘Of course,’ said Lib. ‘Whenever you want. All you need do is ask.’

I handed it to Stan, who held it at arm’s length as if it were emitting some kind of deathly radiation. I took a deep breath. I could get it back if I needed it. I’d wait until tomorrow morning, and then ask for it. So I could check that Mum was okay.

Stan slid the phone into the front pocket of my backpack, and his face split open in a wide grin. ‘That was really hard for you, yeah?’ he asked, his whole body bouncing in an understanding nod. ‘Well done.’

Lib showed me my room. Like the others, it was one of the old offices, small and cramped with only the dim light from a single high window to see by. It was simple, like Fox’s
room back at the Red House, with a single bed and a small bedside table.

I mustered up my courage to ask the question that had been on my lips since we’d arrived.

‘Can I see Fox?’

Lib shook her head. ‘Sorry. The rules of the Institute state that sublimates can’t join the others until they’ve been elutriated.’

‘Elutriated?’

‘It’s a decontamination process,’ Lib explained. ‘You’ve been in contact with too many outside toxins.’

I pictured scenes from a film I’d seen, where naked people were sprayed down with high pressure hoses.

‘We live cleanly,’ said Lib. ‘I know that everything looks a bit grey and dull when you first arrive, but soon you’ll realise how pure everything is here. You’ll see the joy in it. The beauty. But in order to keep things pure, we have to make sure no outside toxins get in. The elutriation process isn’t invasive or unpleasant. You’ll fast in solitude for the rest of today and tonight, here in your room. Then tomorrow, before breakfast, you will receive an elutriation draught.’

‘I have to drink something?’ I prickled with suspicion, and remembered what Minah had said about cordial and arsenic.

Lib nodded. ‘It’s water with a little added sulphur. It’s what we all drink here. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly healthy.’

‘Okay.’ I felt small and dirty, like a child embarrassed after wetting my pants.

Lib seemed to notice, because her expression softened momentarily. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry if everything seems strange at first. Remember that you chose to come here. And you made the right choice. Trust us.’

I nodded. I would. I’d trust them. For now.

Lib closed the door behind her as she left, and I stayed
sitting on the bed, waiting. I had no idea what time it was, but it couldn’t have been later than midday. I hadn’t eaten since my handful of almonds and carrot sticks the night before. I hadn’t had any water either. That explained the dizziness.

Automatically, my hand went to my jeans pocket to pull out my phone, but it wasn’t there. A sudden surge of panic overcame me, as if I’d been set adrift on the ocean with no flares, no drinking water, no navigational tools. What if there was an emergency at home? What if something happened to Mum? I couldn’t text Minah. I couldn’t check my email. I hadn’t used social media for months, but I felt suddenly bereft without it.

More than anything, I wasn’t sure what I was going to
do
. Hours stretched before me. No food. No water. No people. No phone. I didn’t even have a book to read.

I waited.

I picked at my nails.

I counted the seconds pass. I counted in 3/4, then 4/4, then 6/8, then 5/4.

I hummed the
Cavatina
from Beethoven’s 130.

I explored every inch of my tiny office room. I took the blankets off the bed and looked under the mattress. Everything was clean, sparse, spartan. There was a paler square on the grey wall over the bed where a picture frame had once hung. A crack running across the ceiling. A brown stain on the faded carpet near the door.

I stared up at the tiny high window. The glass was frosted with mesh woven through it, so I couldn’t see anything but the slowly changing light, as the day wore on.

Was it a test? Was I supposed to do something? Find something? Solve a puzzle? Discover some secret? Was I meant to have an epiphany?

I heard a light step in the corridor, and my door swung open to reveal a little girl with a shaved head, wearing a plain white tunic that fell to her knees. She held a bundle of clothes.

‘Hi,’ I said. Was her head shaved because of an outbreak of nits? Or was she sick?

‘Hello,’ she said, her tone oddly formal. ‘These are for you.’

She held out the clothes, and I took them. I guessed she was about eight years old.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’m Ruby. What’s your name?’

The girl looked puzzled.

‘You can tell me,’ I said. ‘It’s okay.’

‘I’m a monkey,’ she said.

‘You’re a monkey? Or your name is Monkey?’

The girl shrugged, and nodded. Perhaps it was a nickname. Although she didn’t seem very cheeky or monkey-like to me.

‘Do you live here, Monkey?’ I asked. ‘With your parents?’

‘I’m not supposed to talk to you,’ the girl said, her expression grave. ‘You’re still a toxicant. You must change into clean clothes before you can become a sublimate.’

She backed out of the doorway, her head held high and stiff, pulling the door closed as she did so.

The clothes were the same as those the other Institute members wore – a light-coloured linen shirt, and dark grey trousers. There was also a cotton nightgown, along with a white crop top, white underwear, some socks and a pair of sensible shoes. I wondered how they knew what size I was.

I was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt I’d left home in last night, and they were starting to smell, so I stripped and changed into the clean clothes, wishing I could have a shower as well. I folded my old things carefully on the end of my bed, and waited.

And waited.

Had the girl locked the door behind her, or had she left it open?

Did the door even have a lock?

I got up and tried the handle. No lock.

I sat back down on the bed and stared at the door.

Maybe it
was
a test. Maybe I was supposed to go out. Maybe this was some kind of hazing ritual, a joke.

I stood up again, and opened the door, poking my head out into the hallway. There was nobody in sight.

‘Hello?’ I called, my voice wavering in the silence.

Footsteps approached, and Lib turned into the corridor.

‘Ruby?’ she asked, frowning a little when she saw me standing in the doorway. ‘Is everything okay?’

It wasn’t a test. I really was supposed to stay in my room. I felt weirdly guilty and upset to have let Lib down.

‘Um,’ I said. ‘I – I need to go to the toilet.’

Lib nodded briskly. ‘Follow me.’

She showed me to a small office-style bathroom, complete with chipped sinks and empty soap dispensers, and waited outside a cubicle while I peed. There were bare patches on the walls above the sinks where mirrors had once been, and the locks on the cubicle doors had been removed. Coming out to wash my hands, I longed to cup them under the tap and have a great slurp of water. But Lib hadn’t said I could drink anything. She’d told me I’d have to fast. And I wanted to prove that I could. So I followed her meekly back along the corridor to my room.

It was getting dark. The light globe in my room was broken, so the room grew murkier and murkier until I could only make out the dim outlines of things. The air grew cold and still, and I climbed under the blanket to keep warm. It smelled musty, and the bed sagged in the middle.

Although I’d been eating much less junk since I’d begun hanging out at the Red House, I was still used to having a full stomach. I’d gone past hunger hours ago, and all I felt was a hollow, sick emptiness. But my thirst was still strong. My lungs rasped like dry paper husks. I licked my cracked lips.

I hoped Mum was okay. She had Aunty Cath to make sure she had enough to eat, and that the bills got paid. Aunty Cath would stop her from smoking, and make her shower and put clothes on. I couldn’t do that. Mum was better off without me. Everyone said that Anton and I looked alike – dark curls and big eyes –
like a marsupial with a perm
, Minah always said. I was living proof that he was gone – a bookmark keeping place on an empty page. Better for Mum to forget all about us – me, Anton, and Dad.

Poor Dad.

It had been on the news, the accident. There had been callers on talkback radio. Mum wouldn’t listen to a word of it, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop listening to those sharp, ugly voices telling the world that my father was a monster. That he deserved to be locked away forever. That he’d end up in hell. They painted him as a drunk, careless and abusive, and Anton and me as victims of his neglect.

Dad was none of those things. He wasn’t a monster. He drank a lot, yes. Too much. But he was always a happy drunk. I’d resented it nonetheless, as a kid. There was nothing more embarrassing than waking up to hear your father slurring his way through some U2 song at two in the morning. But he never got angry, or sad, or violent. Dad was … human. He worked hard so Anton and I could have a better life than him. He wanted us to go to uni, get good jobs. He wanted me to join an orchestra, travel the world with ribbons of music floating behind me. He loved us. He loved Mum.

But now he was in some minimum security facility on the
edge of the city. Who knew when I’d see him again? What would happen when he got out? I couldn’t imagine him coming home. I couldn’t imagine waking up every morning and seeing his face. I couldn’t see how he could live with us, surrounded by constant reminders of what he’d done.

What we’d both done.

I heard strains of singing and laughter coming from what I assumed was the warehouse. It sounded joyful, and I wanted more than anything to be there, surrounded by the warmth and love and thoughtfulness of my friends. Stan would be there, telling some hilarious story about his hippy days. Welling would be there, eloquent and sophisticated. Maggie, arguing with everyone, full of fire and opinion. Lib, presiding over everything like the stern yet loving matriarch she was. And Fox, full of gentleness and love and serious thoughts, thoughts big enough to encompass the whole planet. Whole galaxies. I imagined myself there, with them. With Fox. His hand in mine. The warmth of his body pressed against my side. His mouth curled in the smile that he only smiled for me. His eyes full of me, just as mine would be full of him.

But I wasn’t there.

I was alone in the cold, damp darkness, torn between memories of what I had lost and dreams of what I had yet to find.

8

I woke confused and disorientated in the dark. A cold hand was gripping my shoulder, shaking me. For a moment I thought it was Anton, back from the dead to … what? To warn me?

‘Ruby.’ It was Lib.

I sat up, struggling to shake off sleep. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Time to get up.’