Collis’s lips went pale. He didn’t move. His fingers around the beer mug became so tight Mac was surprised it didn’t shatter.
“I’m sorry,” said Mac after a pause. “I wouldn’t have told you, but I was afraid you might hear it at work and not be able to control your reaction. You’ve got to be able to, if that happens.”
Collis shivered convulsively and swiped a hand over his face. “Not everything is about the fucking Resistance, Mac.”
Mac thought of Sephy. His voice sharpened. “You don’t need to tell me that. But you do need to tell me that you can control yourself.”
Collis drained his beer in a quick, angry motion. Around them, the bouncy Van Wheeler tune entwined with the rise and fall of conversation.
Collis put his mug down and sat staring at the empty glass. His red-rimmed gaze was hollow.
“So that’s it, isn’t it?” he murmured.
Mac sighed. “Yeah. I’m sorry.” They both knew what was done to prisoners who were recaptured. Vancour would wish for death long before it came.
Collis rose suddenly, grabbing up his jacket. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
Mac started up too. “I’ll come with you, pal.”
“No. Don’t.” Collis closed his eyes and then gave Mac a steady look. “Don’t worry,” he said flatly. “I’ll control myself if anyone mentions it to me at work. But right now, I’ve got to be alone.”
Mac nodded. He didn’t really blame him. “You’ll bring the kid around later, right?”
At the mention of the boy he’d rescued, Collis let out a long breath. “Yeah,” he said softly. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Yeah,” he repeated, more strongly.
Mac rose and offered his hand. “You did a good thing, you know. Getting them out.”
Collis grasped his hand; his throat worked. “Aw, hell, Mac,” he whispered.
Mac gripped his shoulder. “You go on,” he said. “Find someplace where you’re alone and cry or scream or whatever you’ve got to do. And then we’ll keep on fighting…because, buddy, I’m afraid we ain’t got much choice.”
When Kay had called Mac that morning, she’d sounded gleeful. “Vancour’s been recaptured; they took her back to H5 this morning,” she said. “There was another one with her. They got him too.” She giggled. “Apparently they put up quite a fight, for two scrawny half-starved things.”
Mac had winced, thinking of Collis. “Hey, congrats!” he’d said. “That’s a real relief, kid. So everything can go ahead as planned, right?”
“Yes, exactly as planned,” said Kay Pierce, her voice jubilant even through the crackly, long-distance connection. “See you tomorrow, Mackie.”
Mac had slowly hung up. They’d both been referring to the Day of Three Suns, even if one of them had fervently been hoping the answer was no.
He thought dully that he could ease up now on trying to reach the airwave spies in the far north. If the northern Resistance was still operating, it didn’t matter any more whether they’d overheard news of Vancour and her accomplice on the private airwaves.
Mac was wearing his Gun uniform: he had to interrogate a few suspected Discordants. An oak tree grew near his window that he often gazed at before these sessions. Taking in its rhythmic, curving lines was a reminder of sanity. Of who he really was. Today the tree was just a tree.
Mac’s fist clenched. He rose and grabbed his hat. Out in the corridor, he stiffened. John Gunnison was heading towards him. Mac hadn’t encountered him in weeks. The once smiling and hearty leader looked thinner now, frowning. He strode ahead of a few subordinates.
Mac almost thought Gunnison wouldn’t recognize him – the man looked distracted enough by “the dark mirror” not to – but his gaze fell on Mac and he stopped short.
“Interrogating Discordants?” he barked.
Mac managed a helpful expression. “That’s right, Johnny.”
Gunnison scanned him coldly. He leaned close. “Get them,” he hissed.
He walked on. Mac swallowed, shaken. I wish to hell you were a thousand miles away, Sephy…but tomorrow it’s all up to you.
“I’m about to put you in check,” said Collis the next evening. A chessboard sat between him and Mac.
“Have at it.” Mac glanced at the clock. Almost eight. Where was she? He rubbed a fist across his palm.
Collis’s expression was troubled. “Stop thinking about it, pal.” He poured Mac another drink.
Mac ignored it. He rose and went to the window again. Very carefully, he peered out. The street below his apartment looked exactly the way it had for the past three hours, apart from being darker.
“I should have stayed,” Mac muttered. “I should have figured out some excuse…”
“You couldn’t; it had to be business as normal,” said Collis quietly. Mac didn’t answer, willing Sephy’s straight, slim figure in its tan overcoat to appear around the corner.
Collis put another disc on the phonoplayer. Trumpets wailed through the room, with a brisk drumbeat underneath. He jammed his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned against the sideboard.
“Hey, um…how about some gin rummy instead?” he said.
Mac let the curtain drop and moved away from the window. He went to the coffee table where the chessboard was set up and picked up the drink, swirling the liquid in the glass.
“Mac?”
Collis still looked pale and flattened after the news of the day before, but the guy was here, trying his best. Mac blew out a breath. He started to put the drink down and then took a gulp.
“No,” he said. “But thanks.” He glanced at Collis. “Hey, I liked the kid,” he said.
Collis nodded. “He’s a good guy.”
“He’s settling in okay?” asked Mac.
“I think so. I’ll check in on him later.”
The boy Collis had rescued had now been installed in a more permanent safe house, with false papers showing he was seventeen. Sephy was going to give him lessons so that if needed, he could take a state astrologer’s post. Meanwhile the kid would be valuable as a messenger.
Mac put the drink down again and studied Collis more carefully. “So you didn’t tell him,” he realized.
Collis looked at the rug. “No,” he said finally. “I didn’t tell him that she’d escaped in the first place, so there was no need to…stir everything up for him.”
Good call, thought Mac. He started to say it and then the restlessness overcame him again. Eight fifteen.
He went to the sofa and perched on its edge. He flipped through a magazine. All he could see was Sephy, sitting at a table with Pierce and Gunnison. In his mind’s eye, Gunnison’s face darkened at what Sephy had just told him – Pierce was glittering, devious.
Mac realized he’d been staring at the same page for several minutes. As part of his job, he sometimes had to look at photos of what had been done to prisoners.
If some future photo showed him Sephy, he would lose his mind.
The sofa cushion shifted as Collis sat beside him. “Hey, buddy, come on. Don’t do this. Cards, okay?” He held up the deck and then shuffled. “Something brainless. Tick Tock, or—”
The disc went briefly silent between songs and Mac’s head snapped up at the sound of footsteps outside. He jumped to his feet. Collis rose too, staring at the door.
The next song started: a wild rumba, pulsing through the air.
Was it Guns out there? If they’ve caught her I don’t even care any more whether they’ve come for me, Mac thought.
The door opened and Sephy walked in. When she saw Mac, she stopped short. Her skin looked ashen.
She put her hands over her face and started to cry.
Mac rushed to her, banging his calf against the coffee table. Her purse had dropped to the floor. She was trembling. “Are you all right?” he asked urgently, smoothing her hair back with both hands.
“Yes…but, oh, Mac…”
The corridor was empty. Mac closed the door, got Sephy to the sofa. He drew her o
nto his lap and held her as she cried. “It doesn’t matter, baby,” he whispered against her warm neck, his eyes tightly shut. “Whatever happened doesn’t matter; I don’t care. You’re all right, you’re all right…”
Distantly, Mac felt Collis clasp his shoulder. The door shut as he let himself out.
At last Sephy raised her head. She just gazed at Mac. He stroked away her tears with his thumb.
“Mac…I’ve made it worse,” she said hoarsely. “Kay Pierce took what I said and ran with it. The coup’s now called the Day of Fire. It’s still in Appalachia…and it’s in just over five weeks.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
December, 1941
I woke up in a bed. I blinked groggily at the ceiling. Vague memories came of furtive voices – of being carried – of the low hum of an auto and the sight of dark trees whipping past.
I started at the sound of a door opening. A sturdy-looking guy with skin as olive as my own appeared at the side of my bed. He had surprising green eyes.
“You’re awake,” he said. He looked relieved, but there was a nervous energy about him; a sort of twitchiness just under the surface.
I swallowed hard. “I…yes.”
“Don’t worry, you’re safe. You can call me Arvin. How are you doing? We got a doctor in. She said you’d be okay.” He spoke so quickly that it took me a moment to realize there’d been a question.
It was an effort to speak. “I’m not sure. Fuzzy.”
“We’ve been giving you pills for the pain. You had a bad blow to the head, not to mention your gunshot wound. You’ve been out for almost two days. Do you need the doctor again?” He bit a fingernail. “That wouldn’t be easy, but we could do it.”
I had no idea if I needed the doctor again. The pain felt distant, held at bay. What bothered me more was the bed’s softness. It seemed almost scary, as if I might sink too deeply into it and be smothered. To try to explain this felt exhausting, so I didn’t try.
I could see that I was in a bedroom, not a hospital room. The photos on the walls showed a smiling family that looked nothing like Arvin.
He tapped a fist against one denim-clad thigh. “Don’t tell me who you are,” he said. “No names! We don’t want to know. We’ve sent someone to put the word out that there’s a message for Griffin, but things are difficult now. We’re not sure if…well, we’re trying our best.”
The words were a flow of confusion that made my head hurt. “Who’s we?” I asked in a mumble.
“You don’t need to know any details. Just call me ‘Arvin’.” He shoved a hand through his hair and sighed, studying me.
“You better rest,” he said. “I’ve got to go now. Someone will check on you later and bring some food.”
I was drifting away again. “Wait,” I got out. “How’s Ingo? Where is he?”
But Arvin was gone.
I slept, but had fitful dreams, so that I felt harried and frightened even in my sleep. Heads stuck on a chain-link fence, sparkling with frost. Ingo’s voice: Hurry! Faster! Hunger clawing at my stomach. A rat that lay half-eaten while Guns battered in the door.
I woke up with a gasp, breathing hard.
“You too?” murmured a voice.
I caught my breath fearfully – but the voice had been Ingo’s. A small lamp was on; in its light I saw him in an armchair near the bed. He looked as if he’d been sleeping there. I stared at him, taking in his cleanliness – the freshness of his clothes. It seemed almost unbelievable.
“You didn’t keep your promise,” I said finally.
Ingo came over and sat beside me. “Yes, I did,” he said. “I said I’d do it if it was time. It wasn’t time. How are you?”
I licked dry lips. “Is there any water?”
“Here.”
There was a full glass by my bedside. I drank almost all of it. When I sank against the pillows again, I studied Ingo’s face. Apart from the cleanliness, there was something strange about it, and then it hit me: he’d shaved. At the same moment, I realized that my own hair was clean.
The sensation was overwhelmingly luxurious. Yet somehow it was too much. I plucked at the sheets. I wanted to hide, to cry.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
“Above the Mayflower – the bar in Calgary that Miguel told me to find.”
My eyes flew to his. “How?”
“The Resistance has spies up here; they listen in on the Guns’ private talkie-waves. They knew escaped prisoners had stolen a plane. One of them saw us crash – they found us and picked us up. We were still seventy miles from Calgary; they brought us here when I asked.”
The fear was deep, automatic. “Is it safe here? Are you positive?”
Ingo didn’t hesitate. “No. I’m not positive. But I’m fairly sure. They got us medical care. Clothes. If they’re really on Gunnison’s side, it’s the most roundabout way of turning us in imaginable.” He offered a twisted smile. “Guns aren’t known for subtlety.”
I sat up a little; my leg gave an angry throb through the haze of pills. I lifted the covers and gazed down at myself. I had on a nightgown: an impossibly soft thing of pale blue. My left thigh was bandaged.
“Apparently the tourniquet was a good idea,” said Ingo quietly. He gave a humourless laugh. “Just as well, since I had no fucking clue what else to do…you scared me, you know.”
“I scared myself.”
“The bullet went right through. The doctor said it didn’t hit the bone, though. You’ll be okay, she said. You might have a limp.”
I glanced at him as I pulled the covers back into place. “Were you there when she bandaged me up?”
Ingo nodded. “I wanted to know you were okay. You’d have done the same for me.”
He was right.
Somewhere in the room a clock ticked, measuring out the seconds. “What’s going on?” I asked apprehensively. “The guy I spoke to – Arvin – said things were difficult now, but that they’d sent someone to get word to Vince Griffin.”
“Arvin? I haven’t met him yet. I’ve hardly spoken to anyone. They seem scared; they don’t want details.”
“That’s what Arvin was like.”
Ingo rubbed tensely at his scar. “From what I can make out, this part of the Resistance has been cut adrift. They’re scrambling a bit now. At least we’re safe for the moment.”
“Safe” seemed an alien concept. I could hear the faint sound of traffic. That seemed alien too. I gently touched the sheet, feeling its smooth softness.
“Did you show them the photos?” I said finally.
“No, I wanted to talk to you first. I think we should wait and show them to this Vince Griffin person – what about you?”
Recalling Arvin’s fear, I nodded. “Yes, I agree.” Dull despair stirred as I thought of the bomb factory…the smiling scientists…my father’s actions to blame.
I talked him into… I mean, I talked to Truce…
My spine steeled. “A limp,” I murmured, wondering if this would affect my ability to get to Madeline.
I glanced at Ingo. “But I’ll walk, right? Did the doctor say when?”
He gave a small smile. “Knowing you, as soon as you decide to.”
My gaze lingered on him. “You’re so clean,” I said. Ingo’s dark eyebrows stood out starkly against his skin.
“So are you. Strange, isn’t it?”
“And your clothes…” He had on tan trousers cinched with a belt around his too-thin waist; a white shirt as pristine as fresh paper. The fact that someone could wear a white shirt – could expect it not to get filthy, could actually change it every day – boggled the mind.
Ingo shrugged and gazed down at his large, thin hands. “One of them gave me pyjamas,” he said. “They were too comfortable; I couldn’t wear them. That sounds idiotic, doesn’t it?”
“No. Are you all right?”
He gave a short laugh then, and I saw that he was feeling as disoriented as I was. “Oh, fine,” he said. “My broken ribs didn’t puncture a lung.
My wound had reopened, but it’s all stitched up now. I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” I said softly.
The bed was a double. Ingo sighed and stretched out beside me, his movements halting, stiff.
“No. I’m not.” He scraped a hand over his face. “That’s why I came in here. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes…” He didn’t finish.
“I needed to hear you breathing,” he said, gazing at the ceiling. “I guess I’ve gotten used to it. These last few weeks, whenever I’d wake up and hear you breathing…I knew that at least we were both alive.”
“I know,” I murmured. “Me too.” I was drifting off again.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No. Stay. I’ll sleep better too.”
I closed my eyes. As I slipped away I was conscious of Ingo’s lean form lying beside me. We weren’t touching, but I could hear the rise and fall of his breath, and knew when it turned softly rhythmic.
This time there were no dreams.
My leg throbbed. I put the crutches aside and lowered myself gingerly to the rim of the tub. I gazed down at my body.
A basin of warm water and a sponge sat on a chair beside me. In the days that Ingo and I had been here, this was the first time I’d managed to bathe on my own, without one of the Resistance women helping me.
I’d gained a little weight and felt stronger, but my body still had no curves. My thighs were strange, skinny things. The left one had two dark, round holes that wept: one on the lower part of my inner thigh and the other just above the back of my knee. I could count my every rib. Apart from when Ingo and I had hastily changed our clothes, it was the first time I’d been wholly undressed since my induction at the camp.
Induction. Melody, with blood coursing down her thighs. Then months later, her wasted body rolling off the platform. The feel of her unresisting limbs as I’d lain over them to protect the boots from the other scavengers.
With a start, I realized the water in the basin had grown cold.
Little things struck me the most. Like the lampshade on my bedside table. It was yellow, with tassels hanging from it. Tassels. Such extravagance, just for a lampshade. And a delicate ballet dancer figurine, poised on eternal tiptoe. I spent long minutes gazing at it, marvelling at a life so safe that such things could exist.