Burn (47 page)

Authors: Julianna Baggott

Tags: #Fiction, #General

BOOK: Burn

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Iralene and Partridge walk into the hall, following the others to the elevator, Lyda and Beckley supporting Pressia’s hobbled grandfather.

Then Iralene stops. She looks at the door to the house she designed. It’s still open—just a crack. Light is pouring from it.

She grabs Partridge’s arm, holds it tight. “Remember,” she says, “you still owe me a favor.”

“Iralene,” Partridge says softly.

“You made me a promise,” she says. “Will you stand by it?”

“Please…” he says.

“Are you a man of your word?” she says. He knows what she wants, and he doesn’t want her to say it aloud, but she does. “I built a home for us.”

Pressia holds the elevator door open. “Hurry,” she calls to them, as the others turn and look back.

He shakes his head. “I can’t.” Iralene lets go of his arm and heads toward the door filled with golden light. He grips Lyda’s letters.

“Don’t, Partridge,” Pressia says.

Lyda says, “There’s nothing real in there. It’s emptiness.”

“I can get you out of here,” Beckley says pleadingly. “Iralene, tell him to come with us!”

“One minute,” Partridge says to Iralene. She gives a nod. He walks down the hall to Lyda. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the stack of his letters, and hands them to her. “Here. These are yours.”

Lyda takes the stack and holds the letters to her chest. “I can’t stay and you can’t go?” she says to Partridge.

“You never know what will happen. One day…”

“If you come looking for me, you know I’ll be out there…”

“Both of you,” he says. Mother and child. “This is a ship. I think if it goes down, I should go with it.”

He walks back to Iralene, takes her by the hand, gives one final wave. He and Iralene step into the glowing room, into its blinding light—and he closes the door behind them.

* * *

A group of survivors stands watch over Bradwell’s body as El Capitan and Helmud lead the others. The circle grows tighter and tighter until only ten yards stand between El Capitan and the Special Forces soldiers, Hastings among them. El Capitan gives a shout, and the survivors around him stop. His command travels around the circle, and soon all of the survivors are locked in place. Hastings looks at El Capitan. Has Hastings lost contact with those inside? What’s going on in there?

No one moves. No one speaks. They stand there in the wind, Bradwell’s sheets still spinning in the ashen air.

And then it happens.

A creaking noise, low and deep, like something heard on a massive ship.

There’s a pop, and then a crack shivers up the side of the Dome like a crack through the ice of a frozen lake. It shoots across the surface, sending out fissures.

And then a piece of the Dome shifts, tilts, and then falls into the Dome itself.

* * *

Our Good Mother walks uphill, protected on all sides by mothers. The cross of the window casing in her chest keeps her posture stiff. She holds her head high. When she sees the splinters run across the white surface of the Dome, she whispers to the baby mouth lodged in her arm, “Let’s go find Daddy, dear one!” And she tightens her grip on her spear. “Let’s go find your papa.”

* * *

The lights flicker then fade. Arvin waits. He holds his breath, closes his eyes—and when he does, he sees his parents’ faces. He’s followed orders so that he could stay alive. He’s made himself valuable, indispensable. But now, he’s finally free. The generator hums to life. The lights brighten overhead, and he hears the buzzing noise of the laboratory being sealed. He won’t leave until he has a cure.

* * *

When the lights flit out, the hum of machinery dies inside of each chamber—up and down the halls. It’s deathly silent. Peekins has been working in this one chamber, trying to save a family—four stiff infants, the pale blue tinge fading from their skin. He fumbles in his pocket for a flashlight. He pulls it out and shines it on the babies before him—the Willuxes. One set of eyes flutter. The eyes open. It’s the little girl. Partridge’s mother. Maybe she’ll be the only one to survive.

* * *

The orbs light each room. Iralene has chosen the music—the same song they danced to at the picnic, which seems so long ago. It seeps in from unseen speakers. They hold each other in the living room—they’re swaying more than dancing. There are voices in the hall now, thudding footsteps.

Partridge whispers, “The sunlight isn’t warm. It’s not real.”

“What is reality anyway?” Iralene says.

“They’re coming for us.”

“Let them come.”

“Iralene,” he says. He cups her face and touches her cheeks with his thumbs.

There’s banging on the door, a heavy body throwing itself against it again and again.

* * *

By the time they reach the street, they can see the sky through the gaping hole. The ash swirls in.

Pressia says, “It’s happening.”

“Ash,” Lyda says.

Beckley is carrying Pressia’s frail grandfather on his back. “I will remember what it was like, won’t I?” Beckley says.

Pressia’s grandfather lifts his hand in the air and catches light flecks of ash in his palm. He looks at Pressia, a shocked expression on his face, and says, “My girl.”

Pressia starts to cry. “Yes,” she says. “I’m here.” Her mother is dead. Bradwell is gone. And Partridge has chosen his own ending. But she has gotten one person back.

There are others on the streets. Some are screaming and crying. They grip their children to their chests. Some are holding on to their valuables—gold candlestick holders, boxes of memorabilia, their guns. In fact, at this distance, they’re holding on so tightly that they look fused to their earthly possessions.

Some start to run—but to where? There’s nowhere to go.

The electrical grid has been compromised. The lights flicker and die. The monorail has come to a grating stop. Beckley leads them to the set of hidden stairs along the secret elevators, now stalled like everything else.

They get to the ground level of the Dome and walk through the vacant grounds of the academy, past dormitories, the darkened windows of classrooms, even across a football field—its white lines striping the fake turf—and by a basketball court behind a chain-link fence. Once upon a time, she’d been told her father was a point guard. Her real father—she’ll probably never hear his voice…He’s out there.

Finally, they come to the soy fields, which are green and leafy. The rows curve with the shape of the Dome. They walk and walk. Pressia can feel the wind sweeping in from somewhere unseen.

Lyda pulls out her spear. The soot is thicker now, whirling in the wind. She says, “It’s snowing.”

Close to the ground, a triangle of the Dome has fallen onto the soy fields, onto the plants with their green leaves and yellow seedpods. The ground, littered with broken shards, crunches under their boots. They walk toward the hole itself and to the edge of the Dome. Pressia looks out into that ashen world, her homeland. Trudging up the hill are the survivors, coming to claim what’s theirs. She starts to run toward them and searches the faces for Bradwell, knowing he won’t be among them.

But there are El Capitan and Helmud—soot streaked and pained. When El Capitan sees Pressia, he stops and falls to his knees. A white piece of paper is clenched in his fist. He raises it over his head like a small white flag.

There is no victory. There’s always loss.

This is his surrender.

This is her surrender.

Her heart is saying,
Enough, enough, enough. I give.

And she expects her heart to stop beating.

She’s lost too much.

And she knows that out there, she will find Bradwell’s body. It will hit her again and again that he’s dead. How many blows can she take?

But her heart beats in her chest and keeps beating.

It beats her back to life.

Her own heart will not surrender.

And so this isn’t the end.

This is only another start.

She stops and looks back over her shoulder. Walking through the black snow toward her are Beckley, carrying her grandfather, alive after all, on his back, and Lyda and the baby inside of her, protected under her handmade armor. She turns back to El Capitan. He staggers to his feet, Helmud weighty on his back, and walks toward Pressia. He hugs her. When they were in the fog surrounded by creatures they thought would kill them, El Capitan said,
If you were the person standing there with me, I’d always, always stay.
This is the promise she needs to believe in.
Stand with me. Stay.

This is her family now.

She and El Capitan and Helmud turn and look at the Pures who are heading into the fields, the green soy leaves shimmering around their ankles. They’re pale and wide-eyed, moving like timid ghosts toward the broken edge of their world.

Somewhere, Partridge and Iralene are sitting at a table in a fake kitchen swollen bright with fake sunlight—while batteries inside of orbs are slowly winding down. If people come after them, she hopes that they’ll at least fight. This is the final bit of faith that she must have in him.

But she’s chosen this truth—grotesquely beautiful and beautifully grotesque—
this
world.

“What are we going to do now?” El Capitan whispers.

“What now?” Helmud says.

“No more blood,” Pressia says.

Her heart beats and beats and beats—each time like a detonation in her own chest—and every moment from here on out is a new world.

The End

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank so many people who endured this ashen world with me for so many years—my spouse, my kids, my loving and generous parents, especially my lead researcher, Bill Baggott; it’s been a lot of welding and soldering and making from cinders. Thank you for your patience.

I’m thankful to my editors, Beth de Guzman, Selina McLemore, and Jaime Levine, as well as all of my overseas editors, especially Hannah Sheppard, Frankie Gray, Florence Lottin, Louise Loiselle, and Patricia Escalona, and my translators who bring this work to life in other languages, in particular Laurent Strim. Thank you to the voices in the audio version—Khristine Hvam, Joshua Swanson, Kevin T. Collins, and Casey Holloway—for adding layers to the narrative. And of course, I’m deeply thankful to the art departments for creating such striking covers. Thank you to the publicists who put so much heart and muscle into getting these books into the world—Linda Duggins and Ben Willis most of all. And I’m thankful for Clare Anne Darragh—for all of her sisterhood and support! I’m thankful to Karen Rosenfelt, Rodney Ferrell, Emmy Castlen, and all of those at Fox 2000 for their vision and conviction. And, welcome in, James Ponsoldt. I’m so glad you’re here.

I want to thank Cheryl Fitch at Florida State University’s Biological Science Department in the Molecular Cloning Facility for letting me see firsthand the work they do. I’m thankful to Margaret McKeown Henihan, who once told me an old Irish tale that made me tear up; it never left.

I’m deeply indebted to Nat Sobel, Judith Weber, the whole crew at Sobel Weber, and Justin Manask. A million times, thank you.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Julianna Baggott, critically acclaimed, bestselling author who also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher and N. E. Bode, has published eighteen books, including novels for adults and younger readers, and collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in the
New York Times
,
Washington Post
,
Boston Globe
,
Best American Poetry
,
Best Creative Nonfiction
,
Real Simple
, and been read on NPR’s
Talk of the Nation
and
All Things Considered
. Her novels include an ALA Alex Award winner, book-pick selections by
People
magazine’s summer reading, a
Washington Post
book-of-the-week, a Book Sense selection, and have been on the
New York Times
’s Notable Books of the Year and
Kirkus Reviews
Best Books of the Year lists. Her novels have been published in over seventy-five overseas editions. She’s a professor in the College of Motion Picture Arts at Florida State University and the cofounder of the nonprofit Kids in Need—Books in Deed.