World Of Shell And Bone Read online

  There is no response.

  I head up the hill, to the very top, hoping for a single moment of utter peace, just one moment in which my thoughts might quiet and all can be still within my soul.

  It occurs to me as I stand there on the edge, feeling the wind rush past my face and hair, that we have come full-circle, Ceres and I. I am here now, someone the government is desperate to get rid of, someone who is a drain on society’s resources.

  I think about Shale, the day we met. How I thought of him as complacent and not exceptionally intelligent. About the day little Onyx was taken, how he’d been the only one of the two of us who’d wanted to do the right thing. I think of the day I found the picture of Ceres—the day I realized everything I knew about him was a lie. I think about the copper pots and pans in our kitchen. By now, the government would have raided our apartment. Would they have taken Shale’s gifts to me? I think of a copper pot on its side, alone in the silent apartment, and a pang of sorrow wells up in me, leaving me breathless.

  I step closer to the ledge so I can see the other side. Hardened sand crumbles, pebbles dance and twirl over the edge and hit the earth below. I put my hand on my stomach. What world am I bringing this new life into? Am I wrong for doing it in spite of what I’ve seen society do to its children? We birth humans and batter them into human-shaped pulp; empty nothingness housed by crumbling shell and bone.

  “Flowers…go to heaven.”

  I still. My blood stops its circuit through my body, my cells fail to age for a full minute. I turn around. She is hard to see through the wall of my tears.

  “What did you say?” The words stick together, come out in a clump.

  But she understands. “Vikki said…” She stops for a moment, as if to hold on to the thought. “Flowers go to heaven.”

  I smile and take a step toward her. “You’re right. I used to say that, didn’t I?”

  I said it so Ceres, in her toddler innocence, would feel better about them dying. Even though heaven was a forbidden concept to speak of, I wanted her to have something to believe in. I wanted my sister to be able to hope.

  She remembers.

  I go to her and envelop her in my arms. She pats me on the back stiffly.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I lie awake in the tent where Ceres and I have been situated side-by-side. There are about a dozen little girls and older teens in there with us. Nights have an eerie quality here; they are never silent, never a respite from the day. The girls are tormented by whatever demons hang over their shoulders even as they sleep. The night is a discordant harmony of moans, groans, mumbled warnings, and the occasional spine-chilling shriek. I’ve given up trying to sleep through it all. I must bear the burden for the hell I sent Ceres to, if only to bear witness to it under the cloak of darkness.

  Ceres begins her muttering and kicking, and I pat her hand like I have been doing every night. Her protestations get louder, and I’m waiting for them to ebb when I realize she’s speaking words as she hardly ever does during the day.

  “Oh, my baby,” Ceres mutters. “My poor, poor baby. My baby. Dead. Red. Said.” Her words fade away and then I can’t understand her anymore.

  I lie there with her hand in mine, frozen. Ceres was pregnant? I close my eyes against the onslaught of images I do not want to see: Drew on me, Drew’s hand on my stomach. The scene changes, and now I am watching from above as Drew forces himself on Ceres. Blood flows from between her legs, thick and warm. I gasp and open my eyes. Tears puddle under my head. I turn on my side and reach for my little sister. I try to infuse her thin, cold body with some of my heat, but she continues to shiver.

  As soon as the sky creeps from black to gray, I roll up my mat, prop it in the corner, and head out of the tent. I want to check in with Nurse Carina, to begin making a plan for how to get the Nukeheads to assist in transporting Ceres and me to the Harbor.

  But the moment I get within sight of the main tent, I can see there’s trouble.

  A cluster of Nukeheads are right outside, talking animatedly. A few of the women cry, while the men look positively murderous. When I walk up to them, they fall silent and eye me with so much hostility, it makes my cheeks burn. I wait for them to part so I can pass through to inside the tent, but they remain in their positions. Just as I’m about to call for Nurse Carina, one of the women spits on the ground and steps aside.

  Inside, Nurse Carina’s doing her best to coax a spoonful of oats into a little girl’s mouth. I see that her eyes are red and swollen, as if she’s been crying.

  “What’s happened?” I ask.

  Her eyes fill as she looks up at me. Sighing, she puts the spoon back into the tin bowl and stands. “Philip’s been captured.”

  Philip. The young boy with the sweet face who drove me to this camp, who helped me reunite with my sister. Fingers of fear begin to claw at my scalp. “How?”

  Nurse Carina wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “He was driving his taxi near Ursa, and he was stopped for an inspection. The Escorts took him late last night.” I see that she’s trembling. “You know what could happen now, Vika.”

  “They’re going to make him talk. He might give away the location of this camp.” The fear recedes to a point of excruciating pain in the center of my forehead. We have to run. There’s even less time than I’d thought. We have to get out of here, make our way to the Harbor and hide there until the ship comes.

  I have to win over the Nukeheads, or Ceres and I won’t make it out alive.

  The Nukeheads call us Flockers—the seemingly perfect people of whom the government approves, and who flock to appease the regime. The reason for their hatred and anger is not entirely a mystery. After all, we were all in the same nuclear war together. They just happen to carry the scars right on their bodies. Still, as a group, they tend to be caustic and too ready to fight to the death. I suppose that’s what happens when someone feels like they don’t have much to lose.

  I’ve seen the Nukehead part of the compound on my walks with Ceres and alone. They mainly keep to the very front, close to the gate. After Ceres has eaten breakfast and is washed and playing, I check in quickly with Nurse Carina to let her know where I’m going. Then I’m off.

  I keep up a good pace. Now that I am eating regularly, even though the portions are meager, I find that I do not get as dizzy or weak as I did when I first got here. I reach the Nukehead compound fifteen minutes later.

  A few of the men stand in a group talking. As I approach, they stop to glare at me as they did earlier, outside the big tent. I am a Flocker, of no use to them. They tolerate me, I know, because Nurse Carina seems to like me, but I’m taking up space and eating food that could be put to better use.

  They are a disconcerting sight: two of them have foreheads that take up half of the length of their faces, one of them has no ears or eyebrows, and the last one—the one closest to me—has skin that looks like red tree bark. Their eyes follow me as I walk, and there is complete silence. It is only broken by the crunch-crunch-crunch of my footsteps on the sandy path. .

  I head to the cluster of tents five yards away from the men and wait for a few moments. I hear the Nukeheads talking inside, but no one seems to be coming out. I clear my throat. “Hello?”

  On cue, a child begins to cry. From the way its shrieking crescendos, I can tell it is being forced to do something it does not want to do. Finally, the tent flap is jerked back and a woman’s face appears in the gap. She is sweating with heat and exertion, and the knobby pustules on her face seem to throb with every pulse.

  “What is it?” She swipes at her forehead, and without meaning to, I cringe for fear that one of the pustules will break. She smirks at my reaction.

  Excellent. I haven’t yet said anything to her, and I’m already off to a bad start.

  “I was wondering if I could speak with you for a moment.”

  She pushes the flap open farther so I can see in. There is a little boy of about three, with a misshapen skull. He arches his back as anot
her woman tries to feed him breakfast. The woman cajoles him, then yells, but nothing seems to work. “As you can see, we’re too busy to stand chatting with a Flocker right now. Boy won’t eat, third day in a row. He’ll be dropping dead soon. Go away.” And she closes the flap in my face.

  I turn around in wonder at the rudeness I have just experienced. I’ve never interacted with the Nukeheads before unless I had to, but it grates on me that every rumor I’ve heard about them seems to be true. And yet, I need them. Ceres needs them. I cannot afford to make enemies. So I say nothing, just head back the way I came, wondering if there is another way. As I pass the group of men again, they chuckle.

  “Flockers not the bosses in refugee camp,” one of the men says with a twang I cannot place. “Now you one of the commons.”

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  I spend the rest of the day close to Ceres, pondering the Nukeheads, and trying not to dwell on Philip’s capture. How can I make my way in, gain their trust?

  Ceres insists on singing snatches of phrases from children’s songs she must’ve learned at the Asylum. I think again about her nightmare, what she said in her sleep.

  “Ceres,” I ask. “I have something to tell you. I’m pregnant.”

  She is still for a moment before continuing to sing her song. “Pocket full of posies.”

  “Ceres.” I edge over to her, grab her hand, and place it over my stomach. “I’m going to have a baby. They matched me with a Husband, Shale. He’s…he’s gone, but it’s his baby.”

  She pulls her hand away and refuses to look at me.

  “Did you have a baby in your stomach too, once?” I am afraid I’ll cause irreparable harm by asking her this, but I want her to know that I know. I want her to see it’s okay to speak to me about it if she wants.

  She stares at me for a long time. I think she’s on the brink of telling me something, the way she’s working her mouth, her jaw. But then she turns away from me and begins to sing again. I sigh.

  Later, when Nurse Carina has a moment, I tell her about my encounter with the Nukeheads. She pats my hand.

  “They’re not sympathetic to our situation, the poor things,” she says.

  “There has to be some way I can get them over to my side,” I say.

  “Getting out of that uniform might help,” Nurse Carina says. “You’re clearly not a Guard, but you just remind them of what they’d rather forget. I have a spare pair of my uniforms you can wear.”

  I glance down at the sand-colored uniform that I’ve washed only once in an effort to conserve water. It’s been three days, and I realize I must stink. “Thank you. I’d like that.” I smile and wave at Lynx as she prances around the grass with Ceres.

  After lunch, I return to the Nukehead compound, this time with Ceres. I’m dressed in Nurse Carina’s white shirt and billowy beige pants, my Guard uniform discarded forever. After a good scrubbing with as little water as I could manage, I feel a lot more presentable for the Nukeheads. It’s my hope that when they see Ceres, they’ll remember they’re not the only ones who’ve been shunned by society.

  The knot of men has dispersed, and I thank my luck silently. Ceres is still humming songs under her breath, seemingly unconcerned that we’re away from her little corner of the camp.

  When we get to the tent where we were earlier, I say, “Hello?” again.

  The flap opens and the woman who was trying to cajole the little boy into eating appears, this time with him on her hip. He sags against her as he watches us, his eyes lifeless and vacant.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Vika, and this is my sister Ceres.” I smile at the little boy. “Has he eaten anything yet?”

  “No,” she replies, her mouth working in a twitch she can’t control. “He doesn’t like the food here. He wants the food we used to eat at our house, sweet food.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” I wish I had something else to offer, but I don’t. I look behind the woman for the other, ruder Nukehead female, but the tent is empty. This is my chance. “I’m here to talk to someone about setting up transportation. I need to get my sister to China. She’s been through hell, and she needs to get out of here, especially now that Philip’s been captured.”

  The woman runs her eyes over Ceres. “I’m sorry for your sister,” she says, “But we are all in trouble, the same as you. We’re waiting for the Sympathetics. There is nothing I can do for you.”

  She goes to close the tent flap, but I put my hand on it to stop her. “Why not? They tell me you people are the only ones who can help. I can’t wait around for sympathetic government workers without knowing exactly when they’ll be here. If you feel that’s what you must do, I understand. But my sister has been tortured and”—I glance at Ceres to make sure she’s distracted, and lower my voice anyway—”raped. I don’t want to take a chance that the Escorts find us before the Sympathetics. She’s been through enough.”

  “Tell me one thing,” the woman says, adjusting her boy on her hip. “When you were in your normal life, did you do anything for us? When you saw Nukeheads outside your house, in the streets, being captured or killed by Maintenance workers, did you say anything? Or did you go home, eat your good food, and sleep in your warm bed? Hmm?”

  I cannot think of a single thing to say. She shakes her head. “It is too late now, for you and your sister. We are busy helping the people who gave to us.”

  And the tent closes in my face again. I turn away, my eyes burning as tears rush to them. It is not Ceres’s fault, I think angrily. It is not her fault that I never helped a Nukehead. Why are they punishing her for my misdeeds? But then the answer comes to me: Of course. It is how they have always been treated, like disgusting leeches on society, through no fault of their own.

  Ceres and I walk back to our side of the camp.

  I cannot stop thinking of the little boy. His sallow skin, his unfocused gaze. He wouldn’t last much longer without food. What did his mother say? He wants sweet food.

  I sit at the foot of a hill, running my hands through the wildflowers and other hearty vegetation growing there. Sweet food. It is then that it hits me: Stevia. An herb I used when I cooked, Stevia is naturally sweet. And the best part is, it’s one of the plants that grows here in spite of the harsh conditions.

  I begin to scout out the desert, analyzing any growth I see. And finally, I find it: a scraggly little Stevia plant, clutching the side of a sandy hill. Smiling, I pluck handfuls of it and stow it in the pockets of Nurse Carina’s pants. Then I grab Ceres’s hand and race back to the Nukehead compound.

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  When we get there, I open the tent flap without bothering to announce myself. The woman with the pustules is there again, and I feel a dart of nerves, but I hold my hand out with the Stevia leaves in it. “I have something that will help your boy eat.”

  The mother of the little boy frowns. “Leaves?”

  “It’s an herb called Stevia. It’s sweet. Look.” I pick a leaf and pop it into my mouth, chewing to show it’s not harmful. “I used it when I cooked back home.”

  The woman with the pustules laughs. “Cooked? I thought Flocker females weren’t allowed to cook.”

  “It’s strongly discouraged,” I say, trying not to get angry. “But I did it. I enjoyed it. Look, if we grind up some of these leaves and add it to his meals, he’ll eat. Shall we try?”

  The boy’s mother grabs two leaves and chews them to check for herself. Then she smiles.

  Once the leaves are ground and added to his food, the boy still refuses to open his mouth. His mother smears the paste on his lips out of exasperation. His tongue snakes out and tastes the concoction. When he realizes it is sweet, he eats big mouthfuls of his food, making little slurping sounds. The mother, the woman with the pustules, and I laugh. It is an amazing sight. Already, more color appears in his cheeks. When he lets out a burp, the mother begins to cry.

  The woman with the pustules turns to me. “My sister says you came by before, to ask for transport
ation to the Harbor.”

  “Yes.” I feel sweat begin to form on my face. “I want to take my sister to China.”

  The boy’s mother nods and wipes her eyes. “You will want to talk to Reyes. He’s the one who handles all of that. You must have seen him when you came through. He stands on the corner with some other guys—the one with the red skin.”

  “Yes, I saw him.” I don’t tell them he laughed at me. “I can tell him you sent me.”

  The woman with the pustules smiles, as if she knows exactly what I’m getting at. “Don’t worry. I’ll come with you to make the introductions. Reyes is not keen on Flockers without introductions.”

  I follow her to another tent. When she opens the flaps I see the same four men from before, sitting around a makeshift cot. It is clear from the pipes they hold and the smell in the room that they are smoking hashish. It is only available in limited quantities in le marché noir, and Nukeheads hold the largest quantities, perhaps because they have the greatest need to escape their lives.

  “Flocker girl and her sister want transportation to the Harbor,” the woman says.

  They blow out blue smoke and look at me, their eyes narrow slits. Finally, Reyes speaks up. I watch in fascination as the cavity of his mouth emerges from inside his red skin.

  “Where’s your uniform?”

  The woman with the pustules leaves with a squeeze to my shoulder, as if to say this is between me and Reyes.

  “I took it off,” I say. “Nurse Carina lent me her uniform. It’s cleaner. Besides, I wasn’t actually a Guard, it was just a—”

  But Reyes isn’t interested in hearing about me. “Nurse Carina’s a good person. Wants to help everyone.” Reyes suckles deeply at the pipe. “That’s not true of Nukeheads.”

  The three other men chuckle the vapid chuckle of those whose heads are not completely in the moment.

  “It’s not true of Flockers, either,” I say, my temper rising. “But I just helped that woman’s little boy eat. Added some herb to his food to sweeten it. I went out of my way for one of your kind. I think it’s only fair you return the favor.”