Skylark (8 page)

I closed my eyes, hoping to somehow re-create that patch of darkness in my mind to stop the throbbing. It continued regardless until, unable to fight it off anymore, I slept.

•  •  •

The next day they spent interviewing me—endless questions about my family, my hobbies, my abilities, my knowledge both of the city and of prewar history, and of the current theories about the world beyond the Wall. I wondered if they asked everyone these questions, or if my testing yesterday had shown my interest in prewar history. It was impossible for me to imagine myself as a historian working inside the Institute, but maybe there was some sort of assistant’s position they were considering me for.

For lunch, I was brought to a little room that held only two chairs, one already occupied. A young architect sat making notes on her clipboard as I ate. She didn’t seem to be observing me, but her presence made me uneasy and I didn’t eat much of my meal.

When I pushed aside the tray, she lifted her head and smiled at me. She also wore the compass symbol, but it hung innocently on its wire, the point nowhere near as sharp as the Administrator’s. Unlike Gloriette, her smile didn’t make my skin crawl. “Just a few more questions and one last test, Miss Ainsley,” she said. Her smile widened a little, and I realized that she was only a little older than I was.

She asked if I preferred a specific job. She showed very little reaction when I blurted out “historian.” My heart sank as she made notations on her clipboard. How many other kids had spouted similarly outrageous preferences? I was going back over my test answers the previous day when she asked a question that drew me up short.

“Have you ever used the Resource illegally, Lark?”

I looked up, startled. The assistant’s round eyes gazed back at me.

“What? No. No, of course not.” I felt as though she must be able to hear my hammering heart.

“Okay,” she replied, ducking her head again to make a notation on her clipboard. She continued writing for some time, during which I was certain she knew I was lying. Why couldn’t I have said a simple “no?” Habit prompted me to check my pocket for my paper bird, but the linen trousers had no pockets—and the bird was missing, perhaps forever, perhaps sealing my fate if they had found traces of the Resource.

After a few more questions, she opened a case and removed a copper sphere. When she handed it to me, every hair on my arms stood up. The headache I’d been trying to ignore burst into brilliance and then, just as suddenly, faded into almost nothing. Skin tingling and heart racing, I looked up at the architect in confusion.

“It’s a logic puzzle,” she explained, her eyes flicking back to her clipboard. “You twist it and try to get all the patterns to line up.”

I looked back down at the sphere. It was clearly magical, though I couldn’t see why—it seemed to be a mechanical puzzle. It was made up of tiny copper panels inlaid with glass, each etched with different designs meant to line up with their neighbors. Each panel was slightly concave, fitting my fingertips exactly.

I gave it an experimental twist and was rewarded with the low, quiet hum of some mechanism within the object. Strategy was not my strong point, but my future possibly hinged on completing the puzzle. I saw a few panels that would line up easily, and twisted the ball until they did. The glass lit up with a discordant hum that set my teeth on edge.

The architect didn’t seem to notice. I kept at it, working the puzzle until I had a few more adjacent panels lit and humming. I found myself becoming engrossed in how each new panel required longer patterns of twists to line up without disrupting those I’d already put in place.

It wasn’t until I had half the sphere glowing that I looked up again—to find the architect staring at me. Her clipboard was in her lap, and her face suddenly looked even younger than mine: round eyes, parted lips.

My windpipe closed. What if this device detected whether I’d used magic before?

She cleared her throat when she saw me looking and summoned a labored smile.“I’m just going to run to the restroom,” she said, getting to her feet with a metallic scrape of the chair legs beneath her. “You just—just carry on.” Her eyes flicked down to the puzzle and back to mine, and then she backed out of the room.

I sat rooted to my chair, still holding the magic sphere. My whole body tingled with that magical buzz, which grew stronger every moment. I put the puzzle on the floor, hoping that would help, but not only did the panels on it stay lit, but my skin prickled more.

My jaw clenched so tightly that I felt it pop. I tried to look unconcerned—who knew what methods they had of spying on me? I nudged the puzzle with my toe, sending it rolling across the floor. Even distance brought no relief.

After an eternity the door opened. A plump red form bustled inside, wearing a wide, toothy smile. “Hello, hello, gosling!” said Administrator Gloriette. Her tendency to refer to me as various types of birds—all extinct now—gave me visions of how people used to eat them and use their bones to make soup. Gloriette’s smile made me think she might be imagining what kind of soup my bones would make.

She continued, “I’m hearing some exciting things about you!”

Exciting things? My vocal cords felt frozen, but I was saved from trying to force something out by the Administrator herself.

“Are you enjoying yourself so far, here at the Institute?” I nodded, still not able to speak.

Gloriette beamed her wide-lipped smile at me. “How perfectly fabulous,” she cooed. “We so rarely see someone of your potential come through here, you know. You could be anything you wanted to be. Maybe even an architect’s assistant! Would you like that?”

My head spun. Maybe this was a mind game—to throw me off-guard and convince me to blurt out the truth. With a huge effort I found my voice again. “Thank you, ma’am, but I’m more interested in history.”

Gloriette’s smile faded to something a little less brilliant. Apparently, this wasn’t the response she expected. “Well, aren’t you sweet? I think you would make a perfect historian. Of course, we’ll have to keep you here for a few days so that we can run a few more tests. A historian is such a rare thing that we need to make absolutely certain, of course.”

I found myself nodding, although my mind still roiled. I was certain that being kept behind meant something terrible, and yet Gloriette was smiling and telling me I was gifted, that I could be anything.

Still chattering, Gloriette reached for my elbow and pulled me to my feet. “I’ll just take you back to your room, duck.”

“I could find my way,” I offered, shrinking from her heavy touch. “Especially if I’m to stay here as a historian.”

“No, no,” replied Gloriette, ushering me down the hallway. “I won’t hear of it. It’s rude to make you run around unescorted.” She stepped back toward the door as she said this, and in the process, she crushed the puzzle with her left foot. She didn’t even look down.

I managed to plaster a smile across my face in response. My mouth said, “Well, I’ve loved it here so far. I’m so glad I get to stay here even longer.”

My mind whispered,
Why are they so afraid to let you out of your room alone?
An image formed in my mind of the boxes I’d seen on my way in, labeled with my name and my brother’s.

By the time we arrived back at my room, I was almost stumbling, kept upright only by Gloriette’s fleshy grip on my arm.

“Could I see my mother and father?” I asked, as she sat me down on my bed. “Just to let them know I’ll be here a little longer?”

“Oh, we’ll take care of that, dear.” Gloriette smiled more widely. “They’re going to be enormously proud of you!”

I tried to arrange the chaotic tangle of thoughts running through my mind. I wanted to insist on seeing my family— surely they couldn’t keep a daughter from her parents?—but I couldn’t form the words. In the end I only stared at her. “Proud of me?” I echoed stupidly.

Gloriette’s eyes narrowed, and yet she kept smiling. The effect was horrifying. “Yes,” she said, looking down at me and testing the needle-like point on her compass with her thumb. “You’re going to do great things for your city.”

As soon as she left, I lurched to my feet and headed for the door. I knew what I would find when I tried the handle, but the wave of despair still choked me. The door wouldn’t budge.

Chapter 7

I awoke in darkness, with no buzzing lights to tell me whether it was day or night. I must have dozed off after Gloriette left. I had been awake only seconds before the door opened, sending a shaft of light slicing into my room. I kept quiet and still, but couldn’t keep up the act when a blue-coated woman came to my bedside and shook me awake.

“Up you go, Miss Ainsley,” she said, giving my arm a little tug.

When I stood, I felt dizzy, groggy. It felt as though I had slept only an hour. The overwhelming weariness that followed Gloriette’s visit was unabated. “What’s going on?” I mumbled. “Am I going home?”

“Time for your harvest,” said the woman, whose face was painfully familiar, though I couldn’t place where I’d seen her before. She introduced herself as Emila. “Don’t worry, you can wear what you slept in.”

“But,” I protested, my voice coming out slow and distorted, “I’ve already been harvested. It’s time to get my assignment. To go home.”

“Have you?” Emila sounded surprised as she led me from the room. “No, I’m sure we wouldn’t have done that. Everyone is always harvested on their way out.”

“But I remember....”

“What do you remember, Lark?”

I realized that I could not remember a thing about being harvested. I remembered the feast, and the hours of testing and interviews. I remembered something about a faulty door lock, and I remembered being afraid they’d find out I had done magic. I remembered Gloriette telling me I could become an assistant. I remembered Kris and his dark, handsome hair, and his privileged, smooth hands. I must have dreamed something about being harvested. Even now, as I began to wake up a little more, the dream drifted away into nothing, like a cloud of steam.

“You’ll be able to see your family again when it’s done,” said Emila when I didn’t reply. “Would you like that?”

My family. Yes, I had wanted to see my mother and father. “Yes, please,” I said eagerly, and stopped resisting.

As soon as I stepped into the corridor, the lights stabbed into my eyes. When I shut them, I felt harsh magic buzzing against my temples, my head bursting into a pain that was strangely, achingly familiar. “Wait,” I said, but Emila pulled me onward.

“Don’t worry, that’ll go away after we harvest you.”

She led me through a maze of corridors, my light-dazzled eyes failing to track where we were going. I was both floating and heavier than lead at the same time.

She brought me to a room full of red coats, who crowded around me to stare at my face, to shine another light into my eyes, to prick my skin with tiny needles I barely felt. I heard them talking in low voices, though I couldn’t understand what they said. The sounds melded with the rushing in my ears as though they were speaking underwater.

Then abruptly I was in a different room altogether, without any surprise that I was there. In this room a woman in a black coat—what did black mean?—took off the tunic and the drawstring trousers I wore and scrubbed me from head to toe.

Then there was another room, this one filled with a huge red coat and Gloriette’s simpering face and saccharine voice. I threw up on the floor, and she barely seemed to notice. She connected strange clips to the tips of my fingers and asked me questions while staring at something I could not see. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, nor could I understand the words I spoke in response.

A room full of green things.
Plants
, I thought dimly.
Am I in the museum?
A vine with pale, sickly yellow flowers all in a row that turned toward me when I entered the room.

Then a room so cold my breath steamed in the air, and I shivered. From somewhere I had acquired a simple, thin white shift that went down to my knees. I gasped and shook, the cold stabbing my body. Our world was strictly climate-controlled inside the Wall. I had never been cold before.

A room lined on either side with mirrors, so I could see myself repeated endlessly, stretching around a barely perceptible curve. Dimly I saw the farthest-away reflection shake itself and lean out so that I could see the empty holes where my eyes should have been.