Anew: Book Two: Hunted (2 page)

Amelia

Manhattan Island

May, 2059

.

“A
melia--?”

I look up, meeting my grandmother’s concerned gaze across
the oval breakfast table spread with white linen and set with old family china
and silver.

 “Your breakfast is getting cold,” Adele prods gently.
Although we have known each other only since I arrived in Manhattan a month
ago, I don’t doubt that my grandmother’s concern for me is genuine. I’m
grateful for it, even though I’m sometimes at a loss as to how to respond.

On this occasion, I force a smile and poke my fork into the
perfectly made omelet scented with fragrant herbs. Adele waits as I take a
bite, chew, and swallow.

“Are you excited about tonight?” she asks.

I’m dreading the Crystal Ball, the gala event that precedes
the start of Carnival. The hours that will be spent smiling, making idle
conversation, and pretending that I am delighted to be among the cream of
society hold no appeal. All I really want is to creep away and hide but I am
not about to inflict that unpleasant truth on a kind woman who wants only what
is best for me.

“Of course,” I say. “It’s the most anticipated event of the
season, isn’t it?”

As short a time as I’ve been here, I’ve learned that
everything involving this glittering enclave of the elite is ‘the
most’--exciting, important, exclusive, desirable, whatever. The city, so
beautiful in many respects, is a testament to excess and self-regard. While
everything is ‘the most’, nothing is ever regarded as ‘too much’.

“I suppose that’s true,” my grandmother says with a smile.
“Certainly, everyone who matters will be there.”

I glance at her in time to catch the hint of challenge on
her lovely, ageless face dominated by eyes the same aquamarine shade as my own
and framed by elegantly coiffed silver hair. It’s on the tip of my tongue to
ask if she thinks that Ian will be at the ball but I stop myself. I’ve already
learned that to speak his name, even as a whisper in the tormented night, only
makes my longing for him all the more unbearable.

Realistically, I know that I don’t need to be concerned
about encountering Ian tonight. His power and position allow him to shrug off
attending such events without consequence. My situation is far more tentative.
Despite the lengths that he and others have gone to protect me, I can’t risk
drawing the wrong kind of attention. As a member of the McClellan family newly
arrived in the city, I am naturally a focus of curiosity and interest. But that
is nothing compared to what would happen if people suspected for a moment who--and
what--I really am.

The soft ticking of the ormolu and marble clock on the
mantle draws me from such cheerless thoughts. I set my napkin aside with a
flicker of relief and rise.

“I should be going. Sergei doesn’t tolerate tardiness.” The
ballet master is as demanding as he is gifted. I’m fortunate to be taking
classes with him.

Adele frowns but she doesn’t object. “Of course, dear. Just
be sure that you’re back by three o’clock. The dressers are arriving then.”

I smother a sigh and nod. On my way toward the front
entrance of the manor, I make a brief detour. At the far end of the living
room, a life-sized portrait of a beautiful young woman hangs looking out over
the gardens. Susannah McClellan, Adele’s other and very beloved grand-daughter,
Edward’s older sister, dead now for more than a year.

In the painting, she is wearing a white, pleated gown of
Grecian design that leaves one shoulder bare and skims her perfect figure. Her
head tilts slightly to one side, as though she is lost in thought. She looks
delicately beautiful with an air of waiting for something that she accepts will
never happen.

Her hair, like mine, is chestnut but straight, perhaps not
naturally since my own is a tumble of curls. Her eyes are the same shade of
aquamarine. An accident in Susannah’s youth that required reconstructive
surgery left her cheekbones a little lower than mine, her jaw a bit rounder.
But that is only the beginning of the differences between us. On my best day, I
could never manage her air of serene acceptance. My nature is far more inclined
to impetuousness and defiance.

The contrast in our personalities inevitably makes me think
of Ian. Susannah was the woman he chose to be with and whose loss he has truly
mourned. Whereas I… He never asked for me to be a part of his life. I was
thrust on him without his prior knowledge or approval. Merely by existing, I’ve
forced him to confront the nightmare that he thought he had long since escaped.

The pain of that is agonizing yet I can’t bring myself to
blame Susannah for any of it. Everything I have, all that I am, I owe to her.
If she hadn’t acted with such courage and grace at the end of her life-- I push
aside thoughts of the macabre fate that would have been mine and reach up,
touching two fingers to the side of the frame. It’s a small gesture but one
that I find myself making every time the complexities and challenges of this
world threaten to overwhelm me. Fittingly enough given the connection between
us, she has become my talisman.

Moving on, I take a quick glance in the gilded mirror that
hangs on one wall of the mahogany-paneled entry hall. My appearance tells me
little more than it did a month ago when I saw myself for the first time.
Still, I no longer feel as though I am looking at a stranger. Little by little,
I am coming to know myself.

My hair is brushed as smooth as possible given its inherent
wildness and coiled into a bun at the nape of my neck. I’ve lost weight in the
last few days with the result that my eyes look even larger than usual in the
pale oval of my face. At least the raw silk pants and fitted black velvet
jacket that I’m wearing over my practice clothes are elegant enough to pass
unremarked on the city’s streets where appearances count for everything.

Outside, I stand for a few moments just beyond the entrance
to the mansion and tilt my head up to the sun. The warm spring air carries the
scents of flowers and newly mown grass from the park on the far side of the
avenue. Beyond the stand of Lombardy pines that screen the residence, cars skim
by soundlessly. I can hear the call of gulls who come inland from the harbor
along the rivers that surround the island city, looking for whatever spoils
they can find.

They aren’t alone. A faint rumbling under my feet reminds me
of the network of conduits that take workers back-and-forth between their
micro-apartments and their places of employment. Deliveries arrive the same way
and waste materials leave. Nothing is allowed to mar the city’s pristine
surface.

Farther down in the abandoned tunnels of the old subway
system and the derelict sub-basements of buildings long since demolished is an
even less welcoming world, home to the scavengers who flock to the city out of
desperation, smuggled in by human traffickers and abandoned at the first hint
of trouble from the heavily armed Municipal Protection Services.

Yet the beautiful, tree-lined streets that I walk along on
the way to Sergei’s studio exude a sense of harmony and serenity. Not
coincidentally, those are the twin virtues emblazoned on the banners fluttering
gaily from flag poles, street lights, and passing cars. Combined with the other
decorations going up for Carnival, it’s all very festive.

I can almost forget that beneath the veneer of culture and
beauty lurks a far more hedonistic reality. Almost nothing is off-limits or
even particularly difficult to obtain. Clubs abound where the most beautiful
and skilled sex workers--men and women alike--serve every taste. The most
popular among them become celebrities, paid huge amounts to endorse products.
Recreational drugs are everywhere. The brilliant and darkly handsome Jorge
Cruces, head of the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, is one of the most
respected men in the city. His success in keeping his products out of the hands
of those too young to use them legally assures that he is left free to sell
them to everyone else. Yet as ruthless as Cruces is said to be, there are still
rumors of illicit substances coming from hidden labs, drugs that promise to
overcome every inhibition and release the darkest, most powerful desires.

It’s all still so new to me. My impulse is to drink in every
sight and sound but I try to control that. I’ve learned from harsh experience
that the sensory overload that results leaves me confused and exhausted.

Although thoughts of Ian are never far from my mind, my mood
lightens as I walk. It’s a relief to lose myself in the anonymity of the
passing crowd, however briefly. I’ve paused to wait for a light to change when
I feel a prickling between my shoulder blades. The familiar sense of being
watched descends on me. I experience it regularly yet I can never discover what
is causing it. We are all watched virtually all the time both outside and in
public buildings but this is different. This feels personal.

Glancing around, I see only residents, who are far too
involved with themselves to take any notice of me, and workers. Many of the
former are dressed in the fashion of the moment--glaring neon colors, lush
fabrics, plumes, and spangles displayed in styles intended to shock, amuse, or
titillate. Any reaction is acceptable so long as attention is paid. The fashion
faddists affect a pose of aloofness while keeping a sharp eye out for admiring
glances. In contrast, the workers are dressed in utilitarian liveries that
designate which household or corporation they serve. They keep their faces blank
and their gazes averted as they scurry along.

I tell myself that I’m merely jumpy but the sensation of
being watched continues until I step inside the elegant building on the other
side of the park where Sergei has his studio. As I do so, I hear the soft thud
of feet on the floor above accompanied by the sharper rap of the staff that the
ballet master uses to beat out time and, when necessary, correct an errant
dancer.

I slip into the communal dressing room, take off my outer
garments and tuck them away in a locker. I’ve just finished tying on my toe
shoes when a gaggle of young dancers enter. They are from the corps de ballet
of Sergei’s company and are preparing for a special performance to be given the
first night of Carnival. Flushed and sweating in their leotards after what has
no doubt been a strenuous work out, they eye me covertly. I can’t really blame
them. As Sergei’s only private pupil, I’m bound to attract their curiosity.

My previous attempts at friendliness having failed, I smile
at no one in particular and leave the dressing room. Sergei is waiting in the
sun-filled studio. The young, intense Russian dance master is almost too good
looking with a long, sinewy body packed with muscle, dark golden hair tied at
the back of his neck in a small ponytail, and harshly beautiful features. He is
brilliant, mercurial, and volatile. None of that troubles me but he is also far
too perceptive.

Narrowing his gaze, he says, “Still brooding, I see. If I
were staging ‘Anna Karenina’, I would cast you in the lead.”

Ignoring the reference to Tolstoy’s tragic heroine who
plunged into a doomed affair that drove her to suicide, I say, “How fortunate
then that you’ve settled on ‘Medea’ instead.”

He’s planning a bloody extravaganza--stage blood, I hope--to
showcase the fury of history’s most legendary scorned woman. The Russian dance
master has a rare ability to hold an audience spellbound while compelling it to
witness the consequences of abused powers and broken promises. It’s a favorite
theme in his work, one I fully support despite the fact that Sergei himself
admits that it’s only a matter of time before he’s made to pay for his candor.

He tilts his head to one side and studies me. “You should be
over him by now, whoever he is. If you were properly focused, you would be
dancing professionally but instead--” He waves a hand in frustration.

The assertion startles me. I’ve only known Sergei for a few
weeks, hardly much time for him to assess my ability. Yet he seems certain.

Positioning myself at the barre, I say, “Thank you but I
doubt that’s true.”

He frowns. “Why not?”

What can I say? That however physically adept I may be, I
lack the emotional experience that is as vital to dance as are music and
movement?

Sergei would rightly want to know how any twenty-two year old
could have lived as little as I have. I can hardly explain to him that when I
woke a few weeks ago in the garden of Ian’s estate two hundred miles north of
the city, I had no idea who I was and only the most scant memories of the time
that had gone before, memories I would prefer not to have at all.

Putting that aside, I say, “Don’t you think I’m too pampered
and privileged to be capable of the discipline that would require?”

He narrows his gaze. “Are you? That had not occurred to me.
But if you think so… “ His staff raps against the bare wooden floor. “Let’s see
what you’re really capable of.”