Wither - Lauren DeStefano 8 стр.


He closes the door and climbs into my bed. I feel his cool, slender fingers encase my cheeks as he settles beside me. He advances for what will be my first kiss, but his lips fail. He sobs, and I feel the heat of his skin and his breath. Rose, he says. It is a choked, frightened sound. He buries his face in my shoulder and loses himself in tears.

I understand grief. After my parents death many of my nights resembled this. So just this once, I wont resist him. I allow him to find sanctuary in my bed, and I let him cling to me as the worst of it comes up.

His screams are muffled by my nightgown. Terrible sounds. I feel them vibrating deep in my bones. This goes on for what feels like hours, and then his breathing becomes ragged but even, his grip on my nightgown eases, and I know hes asleep.

I spend the remainder of the night drifting in and out of a fitful sleep of my own. I dream of gunshots and gray coats and Roses mouth changing color. Eventually I fall into a more substantial sleep, and when the turning of the doorknob awakens me, its morning. Soft light and the sounds of early birds fill the room.

Gabriel comes in, holding my usual breakfast tray, and stops in his tracks when he sees Linden in my bed. Sometime in the night Linden turned away from me, and he is now snoring softly with his arm dangling over the mattresss edge. I silently catch Gabriels eyes and bring a finger to my lips. Then with the same finger I point to my dressing table.

Its impossible to read Gabriels expression as he sets my breakfast where Ive indicated; he somehow looks as wounded as the day when he was limping and bruised. Im not sure whats causing him to look that way until I imagine how this must seem to him. Rose is dead not even a day and Ive already replaced her. But what does that matter to him? He said himself none of the attendants really liked Rose anyway.

I mouth a silent thank-you for the breakfast, and he nods and leaves. Later, perhaps when he sees me in the library, Ill explain what happened. Roses death is starting to sink in, and I have a feeling that very soon Ill need someone I can talk to.

Im careful about getting out of bed. Best to let Linden sleep. Hes had such a rough night, and Ive had better ones myself. I quietly slide the drawer of my nightstand open and retrieve one of the June Beans from the paper bag and head to the window. It still wont open, but the ledge is wide enough to be used as a seat.

I sit and watch the garden as I suck on the candy, which is as green as the mowed lawn beneath my window. From here I have a perfect view of the pool, and I see someone in an attendant uniform cutting into the water with a long net. The water catches the sunlight and breaks into diamond shapes. I think of the ocean that can be seen along the piers in New York. Long ago there used to be beaches there, but now there are concrete slabs that stop where the ocean begins. You can put five dollars in a rusty telescope and see all the way to the Statue of Liberty or one of the gift shop islands beaming with bright lights and key chains and photo opportunities. You can take a double-deck ferry along the pier while a tour guide talks about all the changes to the cityscape over the centuries. You can slip beneath the railing, take off your shoe, and stick your bare foot into the bleary water thats ripe with salt, and fish that arent safe to eatfishermen catch them for sport and throw them back.

I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that Im touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again. Somewhere beneath it lie the ruins of colorful Japan, and Roses favorite, India, the nations that could not survive. This lone continent is all thats left, and the darkness of the water is so mysterious, so alluring, that I find this bright pool water to be too frivolous. Clean and sparkling and safe. I wonder if Linden has ever touched the ocean. I wonder if he knows that this colorful paradise is a lie.

Did Rose ever leave this place? She talked about the world as though shed seen it for herself, but how much farther than the orange groves did she go? I hope that now shes someplace with thriving islands and continents, with plenty of languages to learn and elephants to ride.

Good-bye, I whisper, turning the candy around with my tongue. The taste is like peppermint. I hope she has plenty of June Beans, too.

Theres a gasp from the bed, and Linden flips onto his back, propped up by his elbows. His curls are disheveled, his eyes puffy and confused. For a moment we look at each other, and I can see him struggling to focus. He looks so far away that I wonder if hes still asleep. In the night there were times when he opened his eyes wide and looked at me, and then hed drift off again, muttering about pruning shears and the danger of bees.

Now theres a weak smile coming to his lips. Rose? he croaks.

But then he must wake a bit more, because he looks devastated. I stare out the window, unsure what to do with myself. A part of me feels sorry for him, but stronger than my pity is my hatred. For this place, for the gunshots that haunt my dreams. Why should I console him, simply because I have his dead wifes blond hair? Ive lost the people I love too. Who is there to console me?

After a long pause he says, Your mouth is green.

He sits up. Where did you get the June Beans? he asks.

I cant tell him the truth. I dont want to risk getting Gabriel into trouble again. Rose gave them to me. The other day, from the bowl in her room.

She was fond of you, he says.

I dont want to discuss Rose with him. The night is over, and I wont be his solace any longer. In the night when we were both vulnerable, I was more forgiving, but now in the daylight everything is clear again. Im still his prisoner.

But I cant be completely cold. I cant let my contempt show if hes ever to trust me. Do you swim? I ask.

No, he says. You like the water?

When I was a child, safe in my parents care, I would swim in the indoor pool at the local gym, diving for rings and trying to best my brother in somersault competitions. Its been years since I last went. The world has become too dangerous since then. After the citys only research lab was bombed, destroying jobs and hope for the antidote in one fell swoop, things deteriorated rapidly. There was once a time when science was optimistic about an antidote. But years turned to decades, and new generations are still dying. And hope, like all of us, is dying fast.

A little, I say.

Ill have to show you the pool, then, Linden says. Youve never experienced anything like this one.

The pool doesnt look very special from here, but I think of the effects the bath soaps have on my skin, and the glitter that surrounded Cecilys dress without falling, and I understand that not everything in Linden Ashbys world is as it seems.

Id like that, I say. This is the truth. I would very much like to be out there where the attendant is skimming the water. Its not freedom, but I bet its close enough that Id be able to pretend.

Hes still watching me, though Im acting interested in the pool.

Would it be asking too much, he says, for you to come sit with me for a while?

Yes. Yes, it would be too much. Its too much that Im here at all. I wonder if Linden is aware of the unfair power he has over me. If I express even a fraction of my disgust, Ill never leave this floor again in my life. I have no choice but to oblige.

I find a comfortable in-between by carrying my breakfast tray to the bed. I set it between us, and I sit cross-legged before him. Breakfast came in while you were asleep, I say. You should try to eat something. I lift the lid over the food, and there are waffles dotted with fresh blueberries, far bluer than the ones in the grocery stores back home. Rowan would say not to trust anything so bright. I wonder if these berries were grown in one of the many gardens, if this is what fruit used to look like before it started being harvested in chemical soil.

Linden picks up a waffle in his hand and studies it. I know that look in his eyes. When my parents died, I stared at my meals the same way. Like food was paste, like there was no point to it. Before I can stop myself, I pick up a blueberry and bring it to his lips. I just cant stand to be reminded of that pitiful sadness.

He looks surprised, but he eats it, smiles a little.

I bring him another blueberry, and this time he puts his hand on my wrist. It isnt a forceful grip, like Id expected. Its tenuous, and it lasts only as long as it takes him to swallow the blueberry in his mouth. Then he clears his throat.

Weve been married for nearly a month, but this is the first time since our wedding that Ive been able to look at him. Perhaps its the grief, the pink swollen skin around his eyes that makes him seem harmless. Even kind.

There. That wasnt so bad, was it? I say, and take a blueberry for myself. It tastes sweeter than the ones Im used to. I take the waffle out of his hand and break it in halfa piece for each of us.

He eats, taking small bites and swallowing like its painful. Its like that for a while, with only the sound of the birds outside and us chewing.

When the plate is cleaned, I hand him the glass of orange juice. He takes it in the numb way hes taken the rest of the meal, gulping methodically, his heavy eyelashes pointed down. All this sugar will be good for him, I think.

I shouldnt care how he feels. But it will be good for him.

Rhine? Theres a knock at my door. Its Cecily. Are you up? Whats this word? A-M-N-I-O-C-E-N-T-E-SI-S.

Amniocentesis, I call back, pronouncing it for her.

Oh. Did you know thats how they test babies for defects? she says.

I do know. My parents worked in a laboratory that analyzed everything about fetuses and newborns.

Thats nice, I say.

Come out, she says. Theres a robins nest outside my window. I want to show you. The eggs are really pretty! Shes rarely interested in seeing me, but Ive noticed she doesnt like when doors are closed to her.

After I get dressed, I say, and listen for the silence that means shes left. I pick up the tray and bring it to my dressing table, wondering how long Linden is going to stay. I busy myself by brushing my hair, fastening it back with clips. I open my mouth and see that the green is gone from my tongue.

Linden leans back on his elbow, picking at a stray thread on his cuff and looking pensive. After a while he gets up. Ill be sure someone comes for the tray, he says, and leaves.

I take a warm bath, soaking in the layer of pink foam that floats on the water. Ive gotten used to the crackling sensation the bubbles leave on my skin. I dry my hair and dress in jeans, and a sweater that feels like heaven to touch. All Deirdres work. I am always shimmering in the things she makes me. I roam the hallway for a while, expecting Cecily to find me and lead me to her birds nest, but shes nowhere to be found.

Governor Linden took her out to one of the gardens, Jenna says when I find her, thumbing through the catalog cards in the library. Her voice sounds clearer today, less sullen. She even looks at me after she speaks, purses her lips like shes deciding whether to say more. Then she looks back to the cards.

Why do you call him Governor Linden? I ask her. During our wedding dinner Housemaster Vaughn explained to us that he was to be addressed as Housemaster, because he was the highest authority in the house. But we were expected to call our husband by his given name as a sign of familiarity.

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