Chapter 19 – The Garden of Wonder
I’ve had this very dream millions of times. Dylan would walk into The Glass Palace, pack full of outside treasures and a big smile on his face. He would announce that the reports of his death were a mistake
And here he is, looking at me.
“Dylan, Father said you were dead,” I mumble.
“Your sibling is dead,” says the Brother. His coldness is like a slap to my face. “I am not your brother.”
“You are my brother.”
I don’t know how this has occurred but perhaps it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Father had buried his son on his own, with no witnesses to verify a body. We only had Father’s solemn word that Dylan was dead, but why would he lie if it weren’t true? Why would he make his family suffer through their grief like that?
I realize Father had been about to tell me before the whole ruckus in the meeting hall had started. I think back to when Harold had told me about his son being taken, and Father had said something about wishing he could’ve done as his friend had done. At the time I hadn’t made the connection between my brother and the Order but now it’s obvious. He should’ve told me. I could’ve handled it. Did Mother know? Had Father hidden this horrible fact from everyone? I’ll never know. Father’s personal memories are gone forever.
“You must eat something,” the Brother orders me.
“Leave me alone.”
I begin to survey my surroundings. I’m in a small, compact cell. There is a bed, which I’m on, an air vent in the ceiling, and a strip of white light that illuminates the room far too brightly. There is nothing else apart from the Brother and the tray of food on the floor. Perched on the tray is a bowl of green mush that looks like moldy vomit. Do they really expect me to live on that rubbish?
Even though I can’t see where the door is located in my cell, this place looks a lot easier to break out of than the operations room. If I wanted to, I could jump up and snap this Brother’s neck. I’d snapped the neck of a chicken before, and a rabbit, though never a human. I assume it is a similar procedure. Would I be able to do it, though? I couldn’t kill Brother Willow and I doubt I’d be able to kill whoever this is. Still, I need to escape. How can I do that if I don’t even know how to get out of this room? There is only one thing I can do. I have to get the Brother to take me out of this room first.
I stretch my arms and yawn. “I’m not hungry at the moment, though my limbs are a little stiff. Do you mind if I go on a little walk or something to stretch? Maybe I’ll eat something when we get back.”
There is no way I’m going to eat that muck.
He eyes me warily before saying, “I’ll be watching you every step of the way. Don’t try anything stupid, I will kill you if I must.”
“Are you allowed to kill me?”
The Brother doesn’t answer me. He just steps over the mush in the bowl and over to the wall opposite my bed. He puts his hand on some sort of white panel, which glows at his touch, and a part of the wall seems to just shimmer away into nothingness.
He didn’t need much convincing to let me out. He’s probably hoping I’ll try to escape so he can kill me.
“How did you do that?” I ask, awed at the technology. Once again, I liken it to magic. Why does the Order of Power get to be so advanced while the rest of the world lives with nothing?
“You wouldn’t understand even if I told you,” says the Brother. “The technology is quite complicated, even for members of the Order. A simple farmer like you wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not stupid,” I snap angrily.
“When faced with things like this, you are.”
He is right that I wouldn’t understand any of this technology, but I still want to punch him. Does the Order of Power think everyone but they are brainless farmers who know nothing about anything?
They should’ve shared this technology with those on the outside. They could help people. Instead, they hid it away.
I follow the Brother out into an almost featureless corridor. The walls are silver, though less shiny than what I’d seen in the operating room. Down to my left and the right the corridor seems to go on forever. On both sides there are small white panels on the wall like I saw the Brother use in my cell. There seems to be hundreds of them.
I don’t like to ask but I have to know. “Are all these cells?”
“Yes,” he answers.
“There must be hundreds of them!” I exclaim.
“We’re full at the moment,” says the Brother. He sounds a little annoyed at that. “After you’ve been repurposed, you’ll be elevated to the next level, where the cells are a lot more spacious, though still small if truth be told, and the food is just as bad as down here.”
“Why do you need so many Brothers and Sisters?” I wonder. “It’s not as if you actually do anything apart from annoy villagers and have moldy cabbages thrown at you.”
I laugh inwardly at that. I’d hit a Brother in the eye once with a moldy tomato when he’d tried to talk to Glory. That had been a funny day.
“Serving the gods is a privilege,” says the Brother piously. “The more people there are to worship them the better.”
“The gods are murderers.”
He ignores me and we continue down the corridor. I imagine all the kidnapped people in these cells, awaiting their terrible fate. It makes me want to scream. The Order of Power is evil, no doubt about it. Their members have no right to do this, but they do it anyway. I wish there was a way I could stop them, but at the moment I can’t even help myself.
So much for the Order being pathetic and incompetent.
I stop by a cell a few meters down from my own. I realize that I can look through the black wall and see the person inside. There’s a young girl of about five or six. Tubes snaking out of the wall are inserted into her mouth, her arms and her anus. Her eyes are shut and she seems to be dreaming.
I press my hand against the white panel. Nothing happens. I punch it a few times, but still nothing happens. I have to get her out of there! She’s too young to have her life stolen like this!
“What are you doing?” the Brother demands.
“She’s only a child,” I rage.
“So?” the Brother wonders.
My fist flies at the Brother’s face. He catches it and pushes me back against the cell door. His powerful hands push into my shoulders to keep me from moving. He brings his face up to mine and I imagine that my own brother is going to kill me.
“Do as your older brother tells you and stop being stupid,” he says.
“My brother is dead!” I scream, my spittle flying in his face. “I don’t know who you are but you’re not my brother!”
He removes his hands and steps back a few paces.
“I am Brother Pine. Now do as I’ve told you and stop being so reckless. Another Brother would have had you tortured for trying to assault a member of the Order.”
“You almost sound like you care,” I scoff.
Brother Pine slaps me across the face.
“The only thing I care about is the gods, although I do have quite a liking for torture as well,” says Brother Pine. “Shall I show you?”
I don’t want to provoke him any further. I don’t want to feel any more pain right now. I feel like I’ve been hurt so much already. So I ask him to lead the way, wherever it is we’re going, and we continue on down the corridor.
After three or four minutes we reach an end to the corridor and the rows of cells. There is another white panel and, when Brother Pine presses the palm of his hand on it, the wall disintegrates. A small-boxed white room that looks very cramped is revealed. Its walls are shiny and there is a strip of lighting that runs across the ceiling.
“This is a lift,” announces Brother Pine. “Step inside.”
“I know what a lift it,” I say petulantly. “We have them, had them in The Glass Palace, though they didn’t work.”
I remember Dylan had found a working
generator once and had tried to make one of the lifts work, but nothing had happened. The generator had been left to rust for too long.
I carefully walk inside the lift, watching my step. The ground under me feels unstable, unsafe, like I’m on a boat that’s resting on water. There is a long, fatal fall just inches away from my bare feet. How safe is this lift? It could fall or break at any minute and it’s only small...so small...I have to get out...
Brother Pine laughs and gets in the lift with me. The door appears again, and suddenly we are locked inside. I bang on the door, panic rising in me so fast I can hear my heart beat like drums.
“I want out of here!” I cry.
“Why are you acting like this?”
“It’s too small in here. I can’t breathe.”
“Your cell is almost as small and you didn’t complain,” he points out.
“I was still half asleep then.” I bang on the hidden doorway of the lift, claw at it, kick it. The door has to open and let me out!
Brother Pine’s hand clasps my shoulder. “Calm down.”
“Where are we going?” I ask. The lift is moving. I hadn’t really noticed it until now. The sensation is odd, but not unpleasant. I focus on the Brother, on his voice. However unpleasant this Brother Pine is, he is constant, and I need that to focus.
“Somewhere you can stretch your legs,” Brother Pine answers. “I think you’ll like it.”
“Fresh air?” I inquire. I feel a little hopeful. To see the sky and feel the wind around me sounds like paradise right about now. I miss the outside so much.
“Fresh air?” Brother Pine smirks. “Something like that.”
I watch Brother Pine as the lift to who-knows-where continues on. He’s a few years older than I remember him, and he has the body of a man now, but it’s recognizably Dylan. The day when he’d left for his Journey seems like yesterday. He’d been so full of life, eager to return a man and join the House as an adult. Now here his body is, inhabited by Brother Pine. I focus my hate on him, all my rage, and the panic I feel at being in this small space edges further away.
The Order of Power has taken my father, my brother, and Brian. The gods have killed my entire House. There is just me left to carry on the Casper legacy. I have to find a way out of here, and as much as I want to kill both Brother Willow and Brother Pine, they would kill me if I tried to hurt them. It pains me to say this but, for now, I have to play along, stall for time.
The lift shifts under me, and a little of my fear bubbles back. The lift door vanishes in a wave of black and Brother Pine indicates for me to go forward. I remind myself to inquire whether there is a staircase to use next time.
The squawking of birds greets me as I step out onto a pad of soft grass. The aroma of honeysuckle and lavender assault my nostrils. A wispy warm wind caresses my face. My eyes soak in the scene before me and I wonder at how such a vile race as the Order of Power could produce something so extraordinary, so beautiful. It is constructed, there is no doubt about that. I’m not standing in a lush tropical glade or secret mountain oasis. I’m underground, as evidenced by the rock climbing above me, and the stalagmites that drip down like morning dew.
“I’ll be back to fetch you in a while,” says Brother Pine.
I ignore him as I take in the majesty of the view before me. I walk forward, studying the varying plants and flowers and trees. There is color bursting forth from everywhere, from large red birds that perch on the trees to the fountain with the rainbow colored sculpture of the gods dancing in the water. The garden seems to stretch on for miles and miles. Old religions spoke of a heaven, a paradise. This is a very close approximation of it.
The panorama is soured somewhat when I see several Brothers emerge from behind a giant orange flower. One of them sprays it with a bottle of water and gives me a look of utter contempt before walking on. I figure he must be one of those repurposed for gardening.
The red bird I’d heard making so much noise lands on a large yellow bush beside me. It makes a few more noises and cocks its head, looking at me with beady eyes and a sharp yellow beak. It appears to be harmless enough, though I imagine that its beak could probably take my hand off.
“Sky!” the bird croaks.
I’m going mad. I have to be. Birds can’t talk. I give it a strange look and continue on. There is a lot more for me to look at and that bird is obviously something my imagination has cooked up.
“Sky!” it shouts again.
I turn back as it continues to stare at me like I’m its lunch. It isn’t a very big bird so it probably can’t eat me, so I put my hand out to pet it. It tries to bite me and screams, “Rotter!” It flies off in a huff of feathers, mumbling rude oaths I’ve only ever heard drunken adults mutter.
It obviously wants to be out of here, able to fly in the real sky. Everyone is a prisoner here, even the birds.
I walk casually along a footpath made out of sand. It’s hot on my bare feet but I don’t mind. For a while at least, as I admire trees bearing yellow fruit, a patch of pink flowers buzzing with bees, and a purple bush with spikes on it, I feel free.
I stop by the fountain, feeling a slight splash of water hit my skin. The statue of the gods in the middle of the water is very accurate, and the sight of their faces looking all regal and majestic drives me angry. They are not like this. They don’t care about anyone. They don’t even care about themselves. They’re just creatures obsessed with killing each other to the point that they don’t realize what they’re doing anymore. Harold had told me that, and I’d seen it in Tornado’s eyes.
I could smash the statue. I could smash it to pieces.
I hear a baby crying. The sound of it is so unexpected in a place like this that I whip my head around to find the baby almost straight away. What is a baby doing in the lair of the Order of Power?
Then I see her, a baby cradled in her arms, walking slowly along a pathway by a row of tall tropical trees. It is Lottie. Her head is shaved, and she has the tattoo of the Order on her scalp. She wears simple cotton garments, not the usual Order uniform. Walking by her is Brian, dressed in similar drab clothes and the Order tattoo on his bald head.
I can’t face them. It’s too much.
“Who are you?” Lottie calls. Her face is in a sneer. She stops, as does Brian. The baby squiggles in her arms like a spider. I wonder to whom the baby belongs to. It can’t be Lottie’s. Her stomach is bloated in pregnancy and it looks odd, even a little indecent, on the form of a Sister of the Order.
“I’m Ben Casper,” I tell her proudly.
Brian and Lottie look to each other, then back to me.
“I am Sister Artemis,” says Lottie coldly.
“I am Brother China,” says Brian, his tone equally cold.
They continue to stare at me. Is a half hidden memory screaming at them, telling them they know me? No. They don’t remember me. The Order of Power sees anything that isn’t either them or a god as a lower life form, no better than an ant.
I want to ask who the baby belongs to, how they are doing, but I’m suddenly tongue-tied. I despise the way they stare at me. Lottie had such a vibrant personality, and I know we clashed a lot, but to see her like this is heart breaking. As for Brian, my love is gone and there is nothing I can do about it. They have taken Brian, with his funny personality and his passion for his wife and erased it. Even his hair, which I had admired, was gone, shaved off and thrown away.
Brian is gone.
They walk past me and I wipe a tear from my eye. I refuse to cry. I refuse to mourn for my lost family, and my lost House, and my lost love. Crying doesn’t do any good. Affirmative action does. But I can’t help it. I sit on the grass by the side of the fountain and weep.