Her laugh gives me more reassurance than all the patrolmen on Internment combined.
The cafeteria at lunchtime, in contrast to the rest of the academy, is alive with chatter.
Ive found a few things out about Daphne Leander, Pen says, setting her tray on the table across from Basil and me. She rifles through her satchel and pulls out a folded piece of paper. These were tacked up in the ladies locker room. Theyre all handwritten but they say the same thing. Look at the dateits from last month. It was her essay on the history of the gods. But we had to read our essays aloud, and this isnt the one she read. If I had to guess, it was a draft she didnt intend to have anyone find.
As Im unfolding the page, Basil says, Should we be invading her privacy like this?
Theyre all over the academy, Pen says. Someone wanted them seen, to be sure.
I smooth the page flat against the table and begin to read. Intangible Gods, Daphne Leander, Year Ten.
You look lovely today, Thomas says, seating himself beside Pen.
She glares at her lunch tray and mumbles a dispirited, Thank you.
I fold the paper before Thomas notices it, and tuck it into my skirt pocket.
How are you handling the news? Thomas asks, glancing between Pen and me. It must be pretty frightening for you girls.
Everyones frightened, Pen says. Not just the girls.
Of course, Thomas says. I only meant that you must feel more vulnerable. The fairer sex and all that.
How do you know it had anything to do with being a girl? Pen says. The patrolmen arent watching just the girls. Theyre watching all of us. We dont know why this murderer victimized a girl or if that even mattered, and we dont know who could be next.
I didnt mean to offend, he says, looking between Pen and me. Forgive me.
I concentrate on my tray. It isnt hard to understand why Pen is always avoiding her betrothed, even if to an outsider theyd seem like the perfect pair; hes every bit as attractive as she is, in that pristine, bright-eyed way. And he has her same spiritedness, but they are far from compatible most days. She has confided in me that shed cheerfully marry a dead trout in his place.
Thankfully, Basil is an excellent conversationalist, and he and Thomas begin talking about last weeks squares tournament and some apparent controversy about a referees call on a blunder.
Pen pushes her vegetables around with her fork.
You should try to eat, I say.
I will if you will.
We make a silent game of synchronizing our bites.
After lunch, we drop our utensils, trays, and uneaten food into the respective recycling and compost tubes and we move in four different directions to our next classes. The paper in my pocket feels heavy.
Pen pushes her vegetables around with her fork.
You should try to eat, I say.
I will if you will.
We make a silent game of synchronizing our bites.
After lunch, we drop our utensils, trays, and uneaten food into the respective recycling and compost tubes and we move in four different directions to our next classes. The paper in my pocket feels heavy.
The evening train is less somber than the mornings was. Basil is trying to cheer me with plans for the weekend. He thinks we should go to the theater; one of his favorite books has just been adapted into a play.
I rest my head on his shoulder. His collarbone presses into my cheek, and I breathe in the sharp linen of his uniform and something faintly spicy-sweet. Up until last year, he smelled only of soap, if anything at all.
You dont have to walk me to the door, I say. His train stop is right after mine, and if he walks me inside, hell have to walk a section over to his apartment.
I dont mind, he says as the train begins to slow.
Youll be safer on the train, I say. Itd make me feel a lot better. Please.
Dont worry. Ill protect her, Pen says, tugging me to my feet after the trains final jolt.
Come by tomorrow afternoon, I tell him. Well see the play if you want.
We step off the train and Pen checks her reflection in her wristwatch. Youre lucky, you know, she says. You arent doomed to marry a complete ass.
The patrolmen open the double doors for us, nod as we pass through.
Maybe Thomas isnt as bad as all that, I say. Her being envious of Basil would defeat the purpose of arranged betrothals. Plenty of couples argue.
Ill never fancy him, she says. He has a face like composted broccoli.
I laugh. No he doesnt.
He does. Which is why I intend to never enter the queue. I couldnt inflict such awful cheekbones on future generations, even if theres a chance our children could look like me.
Though its a long way off, Ive given some thought to the queue. I might like having children, but more than that, I think my parents would want a grandchild. Lex and Alice will never be eligible now that hes disabled, but they applied for it six years ago when they were newlyweds.
Because of Internments land limitations, there cant be a round of pregnancies until there has been a sufficient amount of deaths. Its a long waityearswhich is why so many couples enter the queue while theyre still university students. My parents reentered the day my brother was born, and it was more than seven years before they were allowed to have me.
Alice got pregnant out of turn. It wasnt intentional; shed been neglectful with her pill. She pleaded with the decision makers, even writing a personal appeal to the king himself, but she was years from the front of the queue. She offered to give her child to the next eligible couple, as a last-ditch effort to let her child be born, but of course that isnt allowedgiving away a child could lead to resentment and jealousy, which could prove dangerous. Theres a story in The History of Internment to prove that, something about a woman who decided shed rather smother her child than allow it to belong to someone else. Pen knows it better than I do. She has the history book memorized.
After weeks of fighting for her cause, Alice was forced to have a termination procedure. She came home from the hospital with darkness under her eyes, and she retreated immediately to bed, where she stayed for days. Her skin and even her hair seemed to have lost their color.
It took her a very long time to act like Alice again. I would follow her around the apartment and on her weekend errands, coaxing her to take me shopping for new jewelry and to tea shops, throwing my arms around her without warning on shuttles and while she was cooking dinner.
Lex wont have anything to do with pharmaceuticals now. In studying medicine, he used to help manufacture the elixirs that precede the termination procedures, among other things.
Pen is still musing about the queue. You do have nice eyes, she tells me. Blue isnt very dominant against brown, though, is it? Well, still, Basil isnt unattractive.
Were standing in front of her apartment door now.
You should come to the play with us tomorrow, I say. Bring Thomas.
Maybe, she sighs. If my mother is having one of her headaches, shell want me out of the apartment anyway. See you later.
In my apartment, I find my mother sleeping on the couch, curled in Lexs blanket. Theres a hot plate waiting in the stove for me, but Im not hungry. I work on my homework for a while, but the silence feels crushing and it doesnt take long for me to get restless enough to go upstairs.
As always, there are signs of life in Lex and Alices apartment. Alice is standing on the kitchen table in impractical black heels, trying to change a lightbulb.
Morgans here now, Lex says before Ive even stepped into the apartment. Let her help you. Youre going to fall and break your face.
I am not going to break my face, she says, cursing when she burns her fingertips on the bulb.
I grab a new bulb from the package at her feet and hold it up. Youre a peach, she says, stooping to take it.
Were going out in a few minutes, you know, Lex says. Its Friday. Jumper group.
I was hoping youd let me tag along.
Alice climbs down from the table and dusts her hands on her shirtfront. I dont see why not, she says. Itll give me someone to talk to, at least. Im always left waiting in the hallway. They dont even offer me any of their snacks.
Tell Mom so she doesnt worry, Lex says.
Shes sleeping. Already left a note.
Alice runs the tap and smoothes water over some defiant strands of hair. Shes done it up in elaborate curls held in place by bronze clips that compliment her curls many shades of red. Shes wearing a blue dress that curls and billows around her knees and elbows as she moves through the mundane tasks of putting away the bulbs and straightening an image on the wall. Sometimes shes unreal. Something that floated down from the sky.
Before the incident, she and Lex were seldom home. She had a dress for every color the sun illuminates and there was always cause to wear one. Even when I was a child, I admired the love they had, the way every outing, every dinner party or hike through the woods was an adventure. Now Alice dresses up only for weekend errands, and Lexs jumper group every Friday, even though the only people to see her are the shuttle and train passengers. Her job in the gardens requires a drab uniform that Ive always thought looked like it was trying to smother her.
I feel underdressed in my academy uniform, yet I know that I wont have time to change. Alice, reading my mind, disappears to the bedroom and returns, pressing silver earrings into my palm; theyre shaped like stars cascading down little chains.
Better get moving, she says, jostling the back of Lexs chair. If we miss the train, well have to walk.
Outside, the sky has become a deeper blue, filling fast with stars. As we step onto the train platform, Lex crushes a daisy thats growing between the cobbles. I wonder if he remembers what flowers are, not only what they look like, but that they exist at all. Hes knocked over plenty of Alices vases, and he has no idea what the shattering glass was before he ruined it. Hes told me that he cant remember how eyelashes are shaped. He cant conjure an image of our mothers window boxes full of tomato plants, though he had looked at them every day of his life.
The seven thirty train isnt crowded. Theres a group of men in suits at the far end of the car; one of them tips his hat flirtatiously to Alice, and she tugs on her earring, smirking for a moment before turning her attention to ushering Lex into his seat. Theres a mother listening patiently as her young child recites the multiplication tables. Theres a girl traveling alone, which I wouldnt have found strange before the murder. Shes wearing the blue necktie worn by sixth-through eighth-year students. Shes young but her face is pointed up, and something about the ferocity in her eyes is vaguely familiar.