The Boundless Sublime (31 page)

‘What were you going to say?’ I asked. ‘What is the only solution?’

Daddy sighed, crestfallen. ‘I wish I knew, Heracleitus. I wish I could help them all. But even I don’t have that kind of power. All I can do is look after my own family, and hope that one day we can be strong enough to summon the Scintilla, who will liberate us all from this tyrannical oppression.’

He nodded at us, slowly and solemnly, then wound his way through the stacks of boxes to the back of the room, where he disappeared behind a small wooden door that was partially obscured by boxes, in the corner of the back wall where the door to the Monkey House was. Lib continued mechanically peeling and sticking labels, her face unreadable. I looked back at the closed door. I imagined a gleaming, state-of-the-art facility, full of stainless steel and curled glass tubes.

‘Is that Daddy’s laboratory?’ I asked.

She looked up at me and for a moment her face was stricken in deep lines of fear and grief. But then she regained her composure, leaving me wondering if I’d imagined it.

‘Enough,’ she snapped, her voice suddenly harsh. ‘Stop asking questions and get to work.’

I obeyed her, but as I peeled and stuck, I couldn’t help my eyes from wandering to the closed door.

Sleep evaded me once more. I could still feel the chocolate, thick and black on my tongue. It had woken something inside me. Something beautiful and electric and wrong. I vowed to
increase my dosage of supplements and withhold all other foods until the toxins were elutriated from my system. I would be strong, as hard and clear as the diamond that I’d worn in the casino.

After our usual meditation the next morning, Daddy looked over us with a grave expression, blinking with slow, heavy sadness.

‘There is an aphotic in our midst,’ he said. ‘A festering wound. It spreads poison among us.’

His eyes met mine, and a chill passed through me. He knew.

‘There is no pain greater than that of a parent betrayed,’ said Daddy. ‘A parent – a Daddy – puts his trust in his children. He pours love, strength, compassion, patience into them. He gives them everything he has in the world. They are his reason for existing. His everything. So when one of his children betrays him, it is an act of violence. An act of malice and spite.’

He knew about the chocolate. About my weakness. Could he hear the voice in my head, asking questions?

‘I sent four of you into the world on a mission of great importance,’ said Daddy. ‘I chose you because, of all my children, I trusted you to remain pure. To remain loyal. But one of you has been overtaken by shadow. You have brought lead into our home. You threaten our very existence.’

My traitorous body started to shake with fear.

I knew I should confess. Throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy. Plead with him to let me stay – to lock me up and punish me again, for as long as it took.

‘Agrippa.’

It took me a moment to register what Daddy had said. Then I turned and looked at Pippa. Her face was white, tears streaming down her cheeks.

I’m sorry.
Her mouth mouthed the words, but no sound came out.

It wasn’t me.

I wasn’t the traitor.

Pippa was the traitor. Not me. Not Fox. Pippa?

‘Join me,’ said Daddy.

Hesitantly, Pippa took a step forward, then another. Her whole body was shaking with fear and silent sobs.

Daddy held out his hand, palm up. Pippa dug in the pocket of her tunic and pulled out a small item, which she placed on Daddy’s palm.

The ring. The diamond ring I’d worn in the casino. She’d stolen it.

Daddy held it up to the light, where it twinkled in the early morning sun.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said to Pippa, his voice gentle.

She nodded and gulped.

‘Put it on,’ Daddy urged, handing it back.

Pippa seemed to shrink into herself.

‘Go on,’ said Daddy. ‘I want to see it sparkle on your finger.’

Pippa’s body curved into a frightened question mark, but she took the ring back, shaking, and slipped it onto her finger. Daddy took her hand, and held it aloft.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘It suits you. I can see why you are drawn to it.’

Pippa took a deep breath, and seemed to relax a little. Daddy didn’t seem angry at all.

Pippa didn’t know him as well as I did.

‘Heracleitus,’ said Daddy, not looking at me.

I rose to my feet and stepped forward.

‘Do you think that Agrippa’s ring is beautiful?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said, my voice clear.

‘No?’ Daddy’s eyebrows raised in mock surprise, but he didn’t look away from Pippa. ‘And why is that?’

I knew what he wanted me to say, so I said it. ‘It is an anchor. It shackles her to the earth, dragging her down into the mud.’

Daddy nodded. ‘Do you feel it, Agrippa?’

Pippa’s face had gone white again. Slowly, she nodded.

‘The weight of it? Do you feel it chaining you to this planet? Pulling you down, further and further into the muck and the ooze? Do you feel how aphotic it is? How your actuality is drowning in it?’

Pippa fumbled at her fingers, trying to tug the ring off. But her hands were shaking, and the ring stuck behind her knuckle.

‘Do you see?’ said Daddy. ‘Have you had the avocation? Your own body is betraying you. The body
wants
things. In order to be sublime, you must learn to elutriate. To master your urges. But you have given in. Your body rules you, now.’

Pippa tugged harder.

‘How do you get your body back under control? How do you teach it that
you
are in charge – your mind. Your actuality. Heracleitus?’

I closed my eyes for a moment, and remembered Daddy’s boot sinking into my stomach, the taste of blood in my mouth.

‘You punish the body,’ I said.

Daddy turned his head away from Pippa and locked eyes with me.

‘Yes,’ he whispered, his voice almost inaudible. ‘Yes.’

Daddy held out a hand, and Val passed him a pair of boltcutters – sharp blades with red rubber handles. My stomach dropped deep into my belly, and I struggled to keep my expression calm.

Daddy mustn’t know. Do anything he says, just make sure he doesn’t find out that you have doubts.

He was trying to scare Pippa. Surely he wouldn’t really do it.

Would he?

Wait. Stay calm.

Pippa whirled around, her eyes searching out Lib. ‘Tell him,’ she pleaded, her voice high with hysteria.

Lib swallowed, then stepped forward and murmured something to Daddy. His expression softened, and for a moment I thought he was going to let Pippa go, but then his eyes flicked over to me, then back to Pippa.

He sighed. ‘I’m afraid you don’t get any special treatment, my dear.’ He held out the boltcutters to me. ‘Teach Agrippa’s body the technic, Heracleitus.’

It was another test. Like Val and the beaker of poison. He’d stop me before I actually did it. The hair on my arms stood on end, as thoughts rushed through me. I had to be careful. Very careful. Daddy was testing me. This technic wasn’t about poor Pippa at all, it was about me. How I responded was very important. I kept my face neutral as I took the boltcutters.

He wanted me to prove myself. Prove that I was still loyal. That I was still his.

Was I?

All I knew was that if he saw me flinch – if he saw any doubt in my mind – he’d cast me aside. Or worse.

He wouldn’t actually make me do it, though.

Daddy reached out and grabbed Pippa’s hand by the wrist. He folded all her fingers over into a fist, except for the one with the ring.

I slipped the boltcutters over Pippa’s finger and gripped the red handles. Pippa began to weep, her voice cracking as she begged me to stop, begged Daddy for mercy.

I paused, waiting for Daddy to tell me to stand down.

His eyes bore into mine, cold and hard as steel.

He said nothing, and I realised with a flash of horror that he wasn’t going to stop me.

There are so many things I would change, if I could. So many choices I made that I regret. This one haunts me the most. I dream about it regularly, waking each time soaked in sweat and guilt. Because I knew better. The chocolate had woken me up, and I was beginning to see clearly. I wasn’t brainwashed, a mindless zombie with no free will. I was afraid. Afraid of being punished. Afraid Daddy would see my weakness, my doubt, and hurt me again.

So I did it.

Pippa screamed. The resistance of her skin broke as the blades sliced through her flesh, then met bone. I squeezed harder, and felt the bone crunch and give way. Blood splashed onto the front of Daddy’s white tunic, and he released her hand as the piece of finger fell, bouncing on the concrete and rolling away. Pippa’s scream was swallowed up by a low moan, and she crumpled to the floor, unconscious, blood pouring from the place where her finger had been.

Daddy’s mouth spread slowly into a smile, his eyes never leaving mine for a moment.

‘Good girl,’ he murmured.

The boltcutters slipped from my fingers and I felt a wash of relief. Daddy still loved me. He still trusted me.

‘Look after Agrippa,’ Daddy said to Lib. ‘I need her healthy.’

Then he turned and went back inside.

My relief was overpowered by nausea, and I bent double, retching. I tasted the forbidden chocolate and the acidic tang of bile, but there was nothing in my stomach to throw up, so after a moment of sweating and coughing, I stood.

Lib was bent over Pippa, wrapping her hand in a tea towel.
There was blood everywhere, blossoming red sticky wet. Lib signalled to Val, and he stooped and lifted Pippa as though she weighed nothing at all. Then he followed Lib into B Block. One by one, the others dispersed. Nobody would look me in the eye. They wouldn’t even walk near me, taking a wide berth around Daddy’s stage in order to avoid passing right by me. I saw Ash whispering anxiously to Toser, and they briefly clasped hands.

That was forbidden. They didn’t belong to each other anymore. They belonged to Daddy.

We all belonged to Daddy.

I went into the bathroom and wiped the blood from my shoes. My tunic was soaked with dark red. I wondered if it would wash out, or whether I’d be stained forever.

Horrified, I looked down at my shaking hands, and remembered the crunching feeling of bone between steel blades. I had done that.

I felt sick with guilt and fear.

What else would he make me do? And what had he made others do? Had they all carried out his orders as willingly as I had? What happened to the ones who dissented?

I thought about Maggie, and Fox. I’d let myself believe that Daddy had allowed them to leave. But what if I was wrong? If Daddy could order the severing of a finger, could he do more? Could he order an execution?

I tried to tell myself that it was necessary. That Daddy knew best. That what I’d done would help Pippa, help her survive the fight against the Quintus Septum.

The chocolate voice was deafening.

There is no Quintus Septum
.

I needed to know the truth. I needed evidence that the Quintus Septum existed, that the danger was real. It was the only way I’d be able to justify what I’d done.

I was sure the answers were in Daddy’s laboratory. I couldn’t enter through the storage space I’d been in with Lib, as it was in plain sight of the rest of the Institute. Someone would see me and ask why I was there. I’d have to enter through the Monkey House.

I didn’t go to breakfast. Instead I slipped around the narrow side of C Block, clambering over milk crates, weeds and broken bottles. It reminded me of the Wasteland. Minah would like it here. She’d probably try to draw it, except she’d turn the abandoned shopping trolley into some kind of monster. I remembered taking Fox to the Wasteland, and how curious he’d been.

Ugly places often have beautiful secrets.

It must have reminded him of home. Of growing up in the Monkey House. Of working there, looking after the Monkeys.

I pushed through a particularly weedy patch, and came out into the open. I was at the back of the building. There was a heavy wooden door into the Monkey House, and a neat, well-maintained path that led around the other side, back to the courtyard. That was the path the Monkeys used. I reached out and put my hand on the doorhandle, and tried to turn it.

Nothing. The door was locked. I rattled the handle a few times, but it didn’t budge. I let my hand drop to my side, and like magic, the door swung open, revealing three stubble-headed Monkeys, their faces solemn.

Up close, I could see that they weren’t all the same. The youngest one had ruddy cheeks and was missing two front teeth. I wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl, though. The middle one I suspected was a boy, painfully thin and pale, with hollow cheeks and an angular jaw. The tallest one had darker skin and brown eyes, and was definitely a girl. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she took me in.

‘You can’t be here,’ she said, her voice cold.

‘It’s okay,’ I said, surprising myself by how easily the lie came. ‘Daddy said I could come.’

The Monkeys exchanged glances. ‘No,’ said the tall one. ‘He didn’t. You’re lying.’

My skin prickled with unease. They were so different. When I’d first arrived at the Institute, the Monkeys had been plump and happy. Seeing them scampering around, absorbed in play, had been one of the things that had endeared me to the Institute, made me believe that it was a good place. But now they were skinny and pale and wide-eyed with fear. Fox had been right to worry about them.