Dandelion Iron Book One (2 page)

I didn’t feel nostalgic, only grateful. If I wanted to hear geese, all I had to do was Google the noise. Reality is oftentimes overrated. Case in point,
Lonely Moon
, the Juniper-based TV drama Anju and Billy loved. That show was a whole lot easier to understand than the reality of those states turned territories.

Since my trap was ready for Becca, I had a chance to pray. Eyes closed, I asked for forgiveness for ditching class. Next, I prayed God would shine His all-powerful light upon my righteous cause—true love.

(ii)

Before all my adventures, Becca Olson was my favorite villain—rich, pretty, and mean. On the first day I met her, four-and-half years prior, I hadn’t bowed before her royalty. She took it as a snub, since I was just some Juniper girl, about as precious as a rusted penny, and she was an Olson, of the Shaker Heights Olsons, don’t you know?

Becca was a young woman on a mission—to conquer every bit of the world she could. Starting with Billy Finn. She’d dismissed both Anju and me as immigrants from foreign lands and adversaries not worth her time.

Becca flounced through the door along with three of her flouncy friends, petticoated up. All that fabric rubbing together sounded like a rainstorm had entered the room.

Officially, New Morality dresses were supposed to be of a neutral color and cover as much skin as possible to let the natural beauty of a young woman’s soul shine. The New Morality wardrobe guidelines also opposed any sort of accessories—bracelets, rings, necklaces, headbands proclaimed a woman not only frivolous but also vain. Vanity shadowed pride, one of the seven deadly sins.

Bangles layered the wrists of Becca and her friends. Every finger sported jewelry except their left ring fingers. The neon colors of their dresses gleamed bright enough to hurt. Only their hands and faces were visible, which was good enough for the dress code. However, the colors let everyone know they were only paying lip service to the New Morality.

I felt sorry for them. Such clothing and rebelliousness displayed a lack of moral character. But wealth and privilege often inflicted spiritual damage of that sort. The staff frowned on Becca and her entourage, and the administration did too, only the huge donations prolly softened their outrage.

“What do you want?” Becca demanded right off.

I eyed all the faces. It felt like a gunfight, like the ones my sister Wren was always getting into. Wren used semi-automatic pistols. My weapons were far different, but just as powerful.

“It’s about Billy Finn,” I said. Hand in the pocket of my gray dress, I pressed the execute button on the remote control of my slate.

The overhead speakers out in the hall popped and hissed for a second, but I was confident Becca and her crew weren’t bright enough to pay attention to such a small detail. I had patched into the audio cables in the wall. I could’ve hacked into the router and transmitted the signal wirelessly, but the IT department would’ve shut off my broadcast right away. This way, they couldn’t stop me until they got to the server room. I had five minutes easy.

“What about Billy?” Becca’s face radiated contempt. “He asked me to the Sammy Hawkins dance. I accepted. End of story.”

I cleared my throat. I wanted everyone in the school to hear me real well. “Well, Becca, everybody knows Anju and Billy are in love. I was thinking you should be a darling and step aside and let them be together. Remember what Sally Browne Burke said about
—
”

“Oh, please.” She scoffed. “Billy Finn is viable, which makes him a commodity, which means only those who have the money will get him. Anju doesn’t have the cash. I do. Where do you think he got his new frictionless car? Who do you think is going to pay for his college? Why else do you think he asked me to the stupid dance? Don’t be naïve.”

Becca Olson was doing exactly what I needed her to do—turning up skank cards at the poker table. Aces high.

I played stupid. “Oh well, you know, I was just trying
—
”

“I know what you’re doing. You’re just trying to butt into my business. Well, I can’t believe Anju is in love with Billy. I mean, he’s such a fat little toad, but then again, he’s viable, and we all know what that means in this day and age. The boy could have hooves and a tail and we’d all still be falling over ourselves to get to him—every one of us. It’s a competition I’ll win.”

I should’ve stopped there. I really should’ve. But I was sixteen, I had my enemy in my gun sights, and Becca’s sneer made me want to empty the clip on her.

“As I was saying,” I said so innocently, “Sally Browne Burke declares that now more than ever, romantic love is required for the betterment of our species. It’s an idea that our own Mrs. Justice embraces. Natural romantic attraction will bring together boys and girls whom God has destined for each other, which will result in strong, God-fearing children. Why, just the other day, Mrs. Justice—”

Becca erupted. “Mrs. Justice is probably
gillian
.”

Gillian
, as in
tong xing lian
, as in same sex love.

I gasped, and though I couldn’t believe how well my plan was coming together, part of me felt bad for both Becca and Mrs. Justice. Such an accusation could kill a career, especially at a school like the Sally Browne Burke Academy. That year we’d lost two students and a teacher ’cause of gossip. The New Morality insisted homosexuality was a sin. Liberals disagreed. I felt caught in the middle.

“You don’t mean that,” I said, a little out of breath.

Becca seemed to enjoy my shock. “But I do. I mean, she wants us to call her Mrs. Justice. How old-fashioned is that? And there’s no Mr. Justice, never was, which makes me think she has some girl on the side.
Gillian
or not, she’s just a parrot, and not a very pretty one at that. Sally Browne Burke says something and Mrs. Justice repeats it. Whatever. Romantic love is dead and gone. Now it’s all about money. Are we done?”

Standing by the door, Marcy Bauer, one of Becca’s friends, cocked her head and knit her brows. She was the closest to the overhead speakers in the hall, which had just broadcast our entire conversation to every room in the school, including Billy Finn’s classroom. Including Mrs. Justice’s office.

“Becca, I think everyone can hear you,” Marcy said with awe in her voice.

I let my smile shine.

The truth hit Becca like a punch. “You filthy piece of trash!”

I thought to run, but Becca and her friends blocked the door.

Dang. Hadn’t thought of an escape route. Silly me.

(iii)

I scooped up my electric slate, yanked out the audio cords, and got ready to run that petticoat gauntlet.

“I’m going to make you pay!” Becca clattered toward me. She hooked her fingers into claws.

“You really don’t wanna do that,” I warned her, but she wasn’t going to listen. She threw herself at me, telegraphing her attack.

I dodged her. Four years in civilization had civilized a little of the dodge out of me, but twelve years of growing up with two cowgirl-tough older sisters had left my reflexes spring-loaded.

Becca sped past me, but the other girls rushed forward.

Marcy Bauer grabbed my dress, and I stomped her foot. She screamed. I socked Ethel Walters in the stomach, bending her over. Priscilla Carrington reached for me, but I swung a hip and knocked her flat. Becca, had turned and rejoined the fight. She caught my face with her nails, blazing a scratch across my cheek. The pain raised my
shakti
. I punched Becca right in the nose, prolly breaking it. Dropped her to the floor like a bag full of rags.

I felt a little bad, but only a little—she could afford the plastic surgery. And it gave me an escape route. Rich girls in Ohio generally don’t get punched in the nose. Shocked them all as still as stone.

I strode through the perfume and sniffling like Moses through the Red Sea.

“Don’t you walk away from me, you filthy piece of Juniper trash,” Becca snarled.

I stopped at the door. I felt proud to have grown up in a house my mama had fought to build and bled to keep. Before I knew it, I had turned back around. Two princesses lay on the floor of the classroom and two girls stood frozen.

“You don’t know how ridiculous you are, with your country talk and bumpkin manners.” Becca’s face was tearful and bloody and every ounce of pretty was gone, swallowed up by her cruel, mercenary heart. Her neon dress swirled across the floor and her thin arms shook, holding her weight. “Only stupid people live in the Juniper. Stupid or criminally insane. Which one are you?”

I grinned, letting her know nothing she said could hurt me. “Well, I’m criminal enough to have knocked you down. Stupid enough to stand here listening to your nonsense. If you come after me, well, I’ll show you my crazy.” Dang, that was something my sister Wren might’ve said.

“Do you know who I am? Do you know how much money my family gives to this school? You’ll be sorry, Cavatica Weller. You and that Anju, you’ll both pay! Billy Finn is mine. I bought him.”

“You can’t buy people,” I said. “Billy and Anju are meant to be together.”

Becca lowered her head. Blood from her nose dripped onto the floor. She laughed hard, cried harder. “You’re so stupid. You’re so jacking stupid.”

“Prolly,” I said, “but I’d rather be stupid than heartless.”

Overhead through the speakers, Mrs. Justice called out, “Cavatica Weller, please report to my office immediately.” She sounded bitten. Like something was chewing on her. Which would’ve been my sister Wren at that moment.

“See,” Becca said, “you’re in trouble. Not me.”

I was in trouble, but I had no idea how bad it was going to get. If I had, I would’ve called the Cleveland police myself.

Chapter Two

The New Morality is a mother’s voice, calling her children home. It is late. We are alone. Night is coming. But if we listen, we can hear our mother calling us to dinner because the kitchen is warm and there is hope, always hope, for those who listen.

—Sally Browne Burke
From the Eighth Annual International
New Morality Conference
June 21, 2057

(i)

Like I said, my sister was coming with hard news.

But then Wren was hard.

How she got that way was a mystery we didn’t talk about much, but we thought about all the time.

Maybe it was ’cause Wren was the middle sister in a time of trouble. Maybe it was ’cause she liked beer more than milk growing up, or maybe it was simple genetics. Either way, Wren courted the Devil when he didn’t come calling on his own accord.

I figured Wren prolly got a calloused heart by growing up on the hip of a woman who had to fight every day to put food on the table. With a sick husband and a big Burlington ranch falling to pieces, Mama didn’t have much time to give Wren what she needed. Heck, I’m not sure anybody could have given her what she needed. Wren’s real name was Irene, but after five seconds, Mama knew she had named her wrong—Irene was a Wren, a soul that had to fly ’cause sitting still hurt too much.

She was late-night gorgeous, black hair, black eyes, and skin like desert-bleached bone. She walked as if the earth was bowing down before her beauty.

My oldest sister Sharlotte was Wren’s complete opposite in everything including how much of Mama’s affection she got. Mama held Sharlotte close to her heart, especially after Elwyn died as a baby. That was when Mama still worked salvage, living hand to mouth and under fire. She hadn’t counted on meeting Charles Weller, hadn’t counted on getting pregnant, though God built our species to be fruitful and multiply. Or so we’d been taught.

My sister Shar and Mama were cut from the same stiff cloth. Both were upright, hardworking and concrete-corset stubborn.

Sharlotte was the oldest, born near the end of Mama’s salvaging days. Four years later came Wren, and four years after that came me. By the time I was born, Mama had mellowed some, but then I wasn’t a problem. By then I had a passel of mothers around on the ranch, so I couldn’t walk two steps into trouble without getting caught and thrown back onto the straight and narrow.

We should’ve had a big family full of girls, but that wasn’t meant to be. Lots of embroidered blankets for the baby girls who died—Elwyn, Fern, Willa, and Avery. Mama would’ve thrown the blankets out, but Sharlotte kept them in her bedroom, folded on her bed.

My classmates at the Academy couldn’t understand why Juniper folks wanted big ol’ families, and it wasn’t ’cause we were Catholic. No, down on the farm, it boiled down to simple economics—the more kids, the more free labor.

And if you struck it rich with a viable boy? Even better.

But women having babies without proper healthcare, too much work, and iffy nutrition added up to more dead babies and dead mothers than most Yankees liked to consider.

Yankees. That was what the Juniper folks called other Americans. Even Southerners. It was ironic, but Juniper folks grew up on beefsteak and irony.

After all the death, only three Weller girls remained—Sharlotte, Wren, and me. We all boiled over with what the Hindus call
shakti
, raw female power.

Maybe that was what had poisoned Wren against the world. All that death.

No, something happened between Wren and Mama early on, something bad. Or maybe I just wanted an easy explanation. In this life, easy answers generally aren’t worth a rotting haystack left out in the rain.

(ii)

Mrs. Justice’s office smelled like books, money, and the Nyco floor polish. Everything shined—the floor, the bookshelves, the wainscoting, and her big desk. Mrs. Justice was just as shiny, ramrod straight behind the desk. Wren lounged in a chair in front of it. A lacy yellow dress covered her, but it was far too short to be New Morality. No, it was a party girl’s dress, and I immediately colored with embarrassment.

Wren smiled at me. Lips curled. Eyes cold. She then hitched up the right side of her skirt and yanked out a Springfield XD Subcompact 9mm pistol from a holster Velcroed to her upper thigh.

Truth be told, her evil smile scared me more than the handgun.

Mrs. Justice gasped. The white washed out of her face even as red flushed her neck. “What are you doing?”