Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) (23 page)

She stared at Roxanne and silently asked what it was. “Yes, good idea.” Her fingers curled around the paper.

Roxanne mouthed something, a name.

Marie brought the paper to her heart. She turned toward the doctor who was still holding the baby. “Rane, can you manage by yourself for a moment?” She pointed at the bathroom in the back of the infirmary.

“Sure.” Rane’s eyes went to Marie’s fisted hand.

Marie saw the soldier’s head following her from one end of the room to the other. She closed the bathroom door behind her and cursed there wasn’t any key to lock it. She sat on the floor with her back firmly against it, in case the woman decided to check on her, and finally opened her hand. It was a note. From Grant. She read it and then she read it again. Only a handful of words, but they made all the difference in the world.

I’m fine. You’re in my thoughts. Grant.

She brought the paper to her lips and kissed it. Grant’s longhand was neat.
Neater than mine,
and she found herself laughing on the bathroom’s floor.

A firm knock on the door. “May I see what’s so funny?” The soldier didn’t give her time to answer.

The door hit her back with a slam and she cried. “One moment!” Hastily hiding Grant’s note inside her bra, she stood and moved out of the way. Just in time.

“What were you doing there?” The Tormentor—she had just earned another name—gave a good look at the bathroom and then came back to her with an accusing gaze.

“What one normally does in a bathroom…” Marie shrugged.

“You think you’re smart?” The Idiot—Marie was having a blast at calling her names in her head—beckoned her outside. “Next time you want to use the bathroom, you ask
me
for permission. Understood?”

“Loud and clear.” Marie refrained from raising her hand to her temple in a martial salute. The woman didn’t seem the humorous type. “May I go back to my patients now?”

The soldier nodded but didn’t look convinced she hadn’t done anything wrong. Marie knew she should have flushed the note down the toilet, but having the folded piece of paper pressing against her heart made her feel better. She walked slowly through the patients’ beds, checking on their conditions, until she was back at Roxanne’s side. “Where is he?” She spoke so low she wasn’t sure the girl had heard her.

“The pavilion,” Roxanne whispered equally low. “The pure breeds have imprisoned all the adult workers there.”

She didn’t know where this pavilion was. She had never strayed far away from the main hub. Now she regretted it.

The girl must have read her mind because she added, “It’s at the northern end of the fields. Maybe two hours’ walk from here. It’s heavily guarded.”

Two hours from here.
Roxanne had walked two hours with a possible concussion. “How did he give you the note?”

Roxanne lowered her voice to barely audible murmur. “While I was walking by, someone shouted. The guards went to check what was going on, and he threw it at me, saying to look for you.”

“Thank you.” She would have hugged the girl for having taken such a risk, but the soldier was hovering nearby. She pressed her hand over her heart and thanked her again. She didn’t ask her to take a note to him. She wanted to. But she understood she couldn’t ask Roxanne anything. She had done a lot for her already.

Later, when all the patients were resting or trying to and she had dutifully reported to the infirmary registry, escorted by the guard, she went to sleep on her new makeshift bed, a slightly more comfortable replica of the previous night’s accommodation. This time, she put a worn blanket on the tiles and she laid on it, pillowing her head on the balled-up sheet. In her mind, she read Grant’s note until her mind couldn’t recognize one word from the other. Finally, she relaxed and succumbed to a much-needed sleep. Her last thoughts were about his smile and how beautiful his handwriting was.

When the siren announced dawn for the third day in a row, she opened her eyes, and for the first time since she had landed in Vasura, she wished she could go back to her dreams. The next twenty-four hours were a repetition of the day before. But the fourth, fifth, and sixth mornings all followed a different pattern. Every day started a half hour earlier than the previous one. A week later, the waste plant was awake in the wee hours of the night. Callista never failed to address the crowd from the safety of the roof while she waited for the raised stage she had commissioned to be completed. She announced all the new changes she had made to better Vasura’s productivity. She never said where she had taken the boys or what was happening to the men. Public floggings became part of the daily routine. Every night, before the recorded bells called the curfew, women were tied to the pole in the main hub, sentenced, and punished. The reasons for the public humiliation and pain were laughable. People soon lost heart.

Meanwhile, Marie feared for Grant and at the same time hoped to receive a new note from him. Neither Nora nor Zena had showed up to the infirmary. A week after Callista’s tyranny had begun, reality had started to resemble a nightmare Marie woke up from only when she went to sleep. She learned a lot in those seven days. Women arrived at all hours because Rane’s infirmary was one of three still open. In her eagerness to optimize Vasura’s resources, Callista repurposed and reconfigured the majority of the buildings. The result was that a crowd formed before the infirmary and sick people were made to wait. Every morning, a new soldier appeared at the door and was replaced at dinnertime by the night shift. Marie and Rane took turns to eat their three allotted meals. Food wasn’t as plentiful as before and the quality of the fare had suffered. Still, Marie barely noticed what she ate. During her meals in the cafeteria, her eyes scanned the equally silent crowd, looking for her friends, then got her hand stamped so she wouldn’t be able to re-enter for another meal. The faces she came upon were different, eyes of different colors, but always sad, already defeated. Ginecea had sent another contingent to support the major’s efforts to civilize them. Other dormitories were seized to accommodate what now amounted to a true army. Vasura had been invaded.

The first day of the third week, she was gulping down her breakfast, some porridge and a glass of milk, when Nora entered the cafeteria. She dropped the bowl on the table and ran to hug her. “How’re you? What happened? Why?” She wanted to cry in happiness.

Nora reciprocated the hug with some enthusiasm of her own.

Marie spun her diminutive friend around. “Oh, but I missed you!”

“Missed you too.” Nora wasn’t as effusive as she was used to.

“Are you okay?”

She made a smile that wasn’t a smile. “I was one of the lucky ones who got assigned to work at the recycling facility. I finished my turn last night.”

Marie released her and stepped back. “Was it…?” In her surprise and joy to finally see her friend, she hadn’t looked at her. She was the portrait of a tired, older Nora, with dark circles under her eyes and limp hair. An unpleasant tanginess wafted from her, although she didn’t look dirty. Her hair was still wet from a shower.

Nora raised her right eyebrow. “Was like I expected it to be?”

Something in the way she said it prevented Marie from asking more. “It’s so nice to talk to you again. I thought of you the whole time. I was so scared I wasn’t going to see you again.”

The small brunette’s mouth dimpled in a smile. “Were you really?”

She recognized the tease and smiled back. “Yes, silly. I missed my chatty, exuberant friend.”

Nora immediately covered her disappointment, but Marie had seen her friend’s eyes cloud for the briefest moment. “I’m so glad to see you, really.”

“Me too. Instead of going home, I went here looking for you as soon I was told I had half a day before starting the next job.” The girl’s hand reached out to caress Marie’s cheek.

She let her. “So where are they sending you now?” She knew Nora already had a destination. Callista was nothing but organized and she wouldn’t give vacation days for no good reason. She hoped Nora had been assigned if not to the infirmary at least some place near. Only Rane’s heartfelt recommendation and the general scarcity of medical staff had insured Marie remained working with her. But the doctor had asked for Trisha and Carine as well and their transfer had been denied.

“North—”

“Where Grant is.” She hadn’t thought. The words had tumbled out.

Nora’s eyes darkened. “No, Grant is at the recycling center. The pure breeds punished him—”

“Why?” A hollow feeling spread through Marie.

Two guards entered the cafeteria, causing the already-soft conversations to die out. Nora made sure the pure breeds weren’t too close but still lowered her voice. “They caught him trying to send out a note…”

Marie gasped and put a hand over her mouth. One of the two guards looked her way for a moment but was distracted by a sudden noise coming from outside.

Nora tilted her head and then her eyes widened. “Oh… it was you he was sending the note to, wasn’t he?”

Marie nodded, her hand automatically pressing against the folded piece of paper she was still hiding in her bra. His words, close to her heart, seemed to burn against her skin. For a moment, she irrationally feared the guards could see through her clothes and pressed harder until her friend gave her a warning look. She made an effort to relax her hand and compose her face into a neutral mask. “Tell me, please.”

“They wanted to make an example out of him. After beating him up, he was sent straight to work at the very core of the recycling facility… the inner chamber.” Nora paused.

“What?” The hollowness she had felt a moment earlier was replaced by piercing fear. She had seen Grant after a beating. The marks from the lashes were etched on his body. Old and new punishments had left a permanent map on his skin.

“The place where he works now… it isn’t safe.” Nora fidgeted with the hem of her shirt.

“Of course it isn’t.” Something on her friend’s face told her there was more.

“He’s been inside the main chamber the whole time.” She hesitated, but after a look from Marie, she said, “He breathes toxins all day long and the guards didn’t even provide him with a hazard suit or a proper mask.” She reached for Marie’s hand and softly applied pressure. “There’s a reason why people work only one month a year at the recycling center. It’s harmful.”

Everybody knew that. Of course, there was this rumor about wasted women, but Marie had always thought it was an exaggeration meant to scare young and impressionable fathered women. It was funny how, once she arrived at Vasura, she had all but forgotten that wasted women were called such because they wasted away working at the recycling center. She hadn’t remembered when Zena had given her the tour that first day after the branding. Or maybe she had conveniently removed the inconvenient knowledge. “How long has he been working there?” The little breakfast she had eaten was now churning her stomach.

“Ten full days.”

Ten days aren’t terrible, are they?
“He has twenty days left.” She would ask Rane which product she could smuggle to help him detoxify his system faster. There must have been something she could give him. She was going to ask the doctor right away. He was young and strong. He would be sick for a week or two. That’s what she had heard. She regretted not having asked Zena more when she’d had the opportunity.

 The girl shook her head. “He’s been permanently transferred. He isn’t going to get out of there alive.”

All of a sudden, the room was too cold. “For having sent a note?” She couldn’t believe the magnitude of the punishment compared to the infraction. All the talks about what a death by waste poisoning meant came back to her. Image after image… her mind didn’t skimp in details. Before, the subjects of those scary talks were generic people, normally culpable of having done something hideous. Now, when she closed her eyes, Grant was wasting away and dying, driven mad by the pain.

“For having sent a note to a woman and kept her name secret.” Nora lowered her voice and then added in a whisper, “You would be there with him now if he hadn’t.”

Her extremities freezing, she had to sit for a moment. She had been sent to a waste plant for no more than what Grant had done, so Callista’s particular brand of justice shouldn’t have surprised her. But she didn’t want to believe the major would send him to die of such a horrible, slow death. She couldn’t believe Ginecea could give a single person so much power over a multitude. Blind rage filled her lungs and drowned her heart. She had never felt anything akin to the feeling she was experiencing. It was frightening and she didn’t have a name for it, but it made her shake and sweat. She tasted a sour aftertaste in her mouth. “I need to see him.”

“It’s not possible.” Nora was looking at the door where the soldiers were ordering everybody out. Breakfast was over already.

“I’ll find a way.” Living how Callista had decided for all of them wasn’t living. She had never been so sure about anything in her life, but she wasn’t going to simply lower her head and obey a mad woman. Ginecea had stopped ordering her about.

They exited the cafeteria and hugged. Nora brushed her lips before walking away to reach a group of girls guarded by three pure breeds.

“See you soon,” Marie said when she was too distant to hear her words. Once out, they had sounded hollow. Something one would say knowing it’s a lie. Eyes burning, she watched as her small friend disappeared behind the soldiers’ bulk. Under the women’s clipped orders, the group moved as one and soon disappeared at the end of the road where a motorized cart was waiting for them. Her heart heavy with rage and longing, she tried to make out the brunette among the indistinguishable dots climbing on the vehicle. The two feelings fought against each other for dominance, and when the cart rounded the corner and disappeared from her sight, she cried.

She blindly walked to the infirmary and went directly to the bathroom where she sat with her back blocking the door, as she had done every day since Grant’s note had arrived. She pulled the piece of paper out and read it, even though there were only a few words and she had them memorized the first time. She couldn’t admit to herself that she had seen Nora for the last time. She didn’t know why the thought had entered her mind, but it was there and had taken roots in her heart and didn’t want to go away. Finally, it filled her completely, and what had been reasonable doubt became certainty. Her head split, her stomach heaved, and she felt sick to her stomach. Once all her breakfast was out of her system, she still felt she must rid of the poison circulating through her body.