by DeVere, Taya
“Was that so hard, Arnie?”
Enyd supports herself against the creaking railing. A step at a time, she creeps toward the cleaning closet. On the broad expanse of cinderblock wall above the stairs, a gigantic message board displays red glowing numbers.
950 739 CC
The number has never hovered this close to one million chip credits before. Not during Enyd’s time in charge of the charity program.
All the bedroom doors are shut. A blue light pierces the gap between the door of the cleaning closet and the carpet just outside it. The beeping continues. Once Enyd gets as close as two feet away, she hears the tapping of small fingers against the keyboard of a device.
How does the child not know how to turn the sound off?
Maybe because the children haven’t had access to any devices for the past two years. For some, it’s been longer. But Enyd already knows who is hiding in the closet. Only one of the children is bold enough to sneak into her office, break into the locked drawers, go through the seized goods, and steal forbidden electronics. Once again.
Enyd reaches for the door handle. Her short, swollen fingers pull the door open. There, among the mops, buckets, brushes, and dusting mitts, sits a teenage girl. The girl’s purple-yellow fingernails now frozen on the smart phone’s cracked screen. Ava. Kinship Care’s only kid with a chip in her brain. But she’s Unchipped—like Enyd.
As Enyd rubs the bridge of her nose, Ava hides the stolen device behind her back. In horror, the girl’s wide blue eyes stare at Enyd’s slippers. “Sister Enyd, I didn’t know…”
The old woman steps forward. “Didn’t know what? That it’s wrong to steal? Or that lying about it only makes things worse for you?”
Ava’s chin sinks to her chest. “Arnie didn’t see me. Nobody did.”
“Oh, but someone did see. Someone above.”
Ava sits there, glaring at her. Biting her cheek. Holding her tongue, doing what she can to stop herself from lashing out. Enyd sighs and holds out her hand. “When lust has conceived, it gives birth to…”
The phone clanks against the closet’s wooden floorboards. Ava wraps her arms around her legs and rocks back and forth.
“Ava? It gives birth to?”
The girl clears her throat. The hatred in her gaze prompts Enyd to stand taller. She won’t fold. She won’t show leniency. She can’t.
“It gives birth to sin,” Ava says.
Enyd steps forward, her hand outstretched. “And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth…”
Ava closes her eyes. She fumbles for the fallen phone. When she finds it, Ava holds onto it with both hands. Was she able to reach anyone outside the children’s home? Would she know how to enter the Chip-Network?
Enyd peeks over her shoulder. The AI-camera points straight at them, its red light blinking: Arnie’s recording. There’s no turning back now. Enyd couldn't save the girl from what’s to come—even if she wanted to.
Frowning, Ava looks up. Knuckles white, she holds the phone in her hands and presses it against her pajama top. “But it’s my phone.”
If this had happened last year, the girl would have already thrown a fit. Without a moment of hesitation, she would’ve woken all fifty-seven children sleeping peacefully in the twelve bedrooms upstairs, as well as the sixty kids sleeping downstairs.
Tonight, Ava won’t throw a fit.
Tonight she knows better.
“Ava? It brings—”
With shaking fingers, Ava hands Enyd the stolen smartphone. Under Ava’s long-sleeved PJ top, Enyd spots a blue and yellow bruise by the girl’s elbow. One of many, she knows.
“Well?”
“When sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
Enyd shoves the phone into the pocket of her robe. “Anything else this time?”
Shaking her head, Ava’s eyes shoot daggers at Enyd.
“Just the phone, then?”
A nod is all Enyd gets. The girl’s surely afraid of her guardian, but the early teen rage is rooted deep. She was twelve when she first arrived in the City of England and Kinship Care. Now that she’s fourteen, Ava’s pig-headedness and unpredictable behavior have finally cracked under Enyd’s handling.
Hands clenched into fists, Ava stands up in the closet. “You can’t keep me here forever. It’s against my human rights.”
Enyd scoffs and stares into the girl’s piercing blue eyes. “Your rights? Oh, my sweet girl. It’s a war zone out there. Chemical weapons, gas masks, and stray bullets. And here you are, tucked under a warm duvet, eating nutritious food. Yet, you’re still complaining. Would you really rather be out there? Hunted? Dying?”
Ava scratches her shaved head. Even in the hallway’s dim nightlight, the scar at the back of her skull looks irritated and red. Has she been digging for her chip again? In her sleep? The nightmares, the girl screaming until everyone else wakes up—that’s the least of the trouble Ava has caused in this house. It’s the most common reason for these nightly encounters, but it’s not the bad dreams that get Ava bashed and bruised.
“I’ll go back to the Chip-Center. I can live there.”
Enyd chuckles and shakes her head. “And do what? Stumble on corpses? Eat half-rotten vegan-nuggets?” The soles of her slippers squeak as Enyd steps aside and gestures for Ava to come out of the closet. Hesitating, the girl steps into the hallway. She then quickly continues to her bedroom door, hoping to join her three roommates sleeping peacefully, oblivious to this nightly adventure. Ava reaches for the doorknob.
“Not so fast.”
The girl’s blackened fingernails hover on the doorknob. She could open the door and close it behind her. Hide under her bed or in the shared closet. Just like she has so many times before.
But Enyd would find her. Drag her back to where the cameras can see.
Ava turns around. Her bruised fingers fiddle against one another. Slippers thump as Enyd walks toward the staircase and stops. She points her finger at a carpetless spot on the floor. The camera follows Ava as she slowly makes her way to the old woman.
Enyd nods at the floor. “You know what to do.”
Ava gets down on all fours. Her voice shivers as she begins. “Forgive me, Father. Forgive me, Sister Enyd. For I have sinned.”
Enyd steps forward. The front of her slipper hovers above Ava’s index finger, pressed against the hallway’s wooden floor. Enyd supports herself against the stairway’s wooden railing and steps on Ava’s finger. Her hundred-and-eighty pounds roll on top of Ava’s already black bruises, as Enyd steps on her fingers.
She doesn’t cry out. That would wake up the rest of the house and cost her five extra fingertips.
Enyd moves her foot to hover above Ava’s middle finger. “Please free me from my sins…” The railing creaks as she again supports herself against it and lands her weight on the second finger. “…for the wages of sin is death.”
The slipper moves onto Ava’s thumb. Then onto her ring and pinkie fingers. The girl holds her breath and sobs silently between the applications of crushing weight. When Enyd pulls her foot away, Ava sighs out all the air in her lungs. She’s about to get up, but Enyd’s words make her freeze on the floor.
“And your wrist.”
The girl shakes her head, doesn’t look up.
“Well, maybe next time you’ll think twice and skip your nightly adventure. Your wrist.”
Ava lies down on her back, arm stretched out at her side. Enyd places her foot against the girl’s wrist and steps on it hard. This time Ava can’t help but squeal. With her free hand, she reaches for the front of her pajama top, shoves the fabric in her mouth to muffle her cry.
Enyd steps back and crosses her arms against her chest. Lips pressed into a thin line, she stares at the whimpering girl. Why can’t she just be like the others?
The stolen phone beeps in the pocket of her robe. Ava winces at the sound but remains motionless, her eyes closed, and her face smudged with tears.
Heavy steps slowly pass her crushe
d hand and continue toward the stairs. The blinking AI-camera stays on Ava, who’s now silently counting to a hundred.
Enyd starts to make her way down the stairs. “Make sure to lift those sleeves all the way up, Ava.” She stops at the third stair but doesn’t turn to look at the weeping girl. “Blissful dreams. May God forgive your lawlessness.”
***
The sound of the hot-air system humming in her ears, Enyd struggles to fall asleep. She tosses and turns under the blankets, fluffs the pillow once again, and shoves her hands under her armpits to keep herself warm.
How is it this cold?
Oliver and Thomas must have forgotten to fill the brick furnace in the cellar before they went to bed. Gardening, maintenance, and carrying water from the well in Kinship’s front yard. That’s what the boys are responsible for these days, now that the only things that need to be guarded are the rooms inside the Kinship Care. No one has tried to enter the premises for over a year. Safe and isolated. That’s what the children have become. Just like Enyd always planned and wanted.
It’s past midnight. Ava’s latest crime has left Enyd too restless to sleep. She’s tempted to tap the only other adult in the house. Or maybe she should walk across the hallway and knock on Margaret’s door?
Margaret. You up? You forgot to lock the office door. Again.
Though the deaf woman infuriates her most of the time, Margaret’s also the closest thing to a friend Enyd has these days. The boys, Oliver and Thomas, are hardly grownups; they just turned twenty last year. Both look like fully grown men. With their broad shoulders and sturdy frames, it’s easy for them to tend to physical labor day in and day out.
Enyd’s sure the two of them eat more than all the children put together.
A steady pressure starts at the back of her head.
“Margaret?” As soon as she says her name, Enyd senses who it is tapping her. A man. Reverend Dragan Marić.
“Grace and bliss, sister Enyd.”
“And you, Reverend.”
“I’m surprised to find you up so late. Margaret is sound asleep. As she should be. What keeps you from sleep, Sister Enyd?”
Should she tell the man about Ava? Would he even care? The reverend doesn’t know what they do to the children. What it is that keeps the charity money coming in. He just wants to hear the numbers. His eyes lust for the red digits on the billboard above the staircase. But Enyd knows that if he learned the truth about the recordings, it would push Marić off a mental ledge. He simply doesn’t have the stomach for it.
“Oh, just the old furnace. Frightfully cold here tonight. Lord knows I’m grateful for a roof overhead. But it would be nice if it wasn’t collapsing.”
The Reverend chuckles at her words.
“You’re right. Many pray for such a safe haven. But with this month’s numbers, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a hefty bonus coming your way. How does the CC score look tonight?”
Of course, he’s calling about the numbers. Revenue—that’s all he cares about.
Enyd sits up and kicks on the rubber-soled slippers. The AI-camera at the corner of her room comes to life. A blinking red light follows her as she walks to the window and peers out between its metal bars. The moonlight pierces the dark clouds. Kinship Care’s high metal fence rises in the distance, surrounding the twenty-acre premises. The front gate is closed with a CS-key that only Enyd can open.
The last thing her predecessors did was to build that fence higher. So high that those looking for asylum wouldn’t be able to climb over. But today, there’s no one left to try breaking and entering. The plague took the sinners before they could even look for a place to hide.
Enyd’s fingers wander along the window’s metal bars. The cold, rough surface reminds her of Samuel. Of before.
“We’re fifty thousand short of hitting one million CC’s.”
“Excellent work, Sister Enyd. God rewards the true believers. Keep up the good work. And please inform me when we have seven figures on the billboard, would you? I believe a celebration is in order, one way or the other.”
“You’ll be the first to know, Reverend.”
Enyd examines her short fingernails in the dim moonlight. She is listening, waiting. The connection is finally gone. The reverend has decided to let her be.
On the bureau by the window, a white, plastic-covered bible glows in the dim moonlight. Prayer beads circle around a stapler, three pencils, and a yellow-paged notebook. Enyd sits down on the wooden stool by the bureau. She spreads the fingers of her right hand wide on the table and reaches for the stapler.
Ava’s long and slender body, her blue eyes, and shaved blonde hair flash through Enyd’s mind.
The stapler’s top presses gently against Enyd’s index finger. She swallows painfully. Enyd stares at the stapler, at her finger pinched between its hammer and the crimp area.
She thinks of the words she’s learned by heart. The phrases, the meanings behind them. This would all be so much easier if she could find a way to fully believe in it.
“It’s not up to me. It’s God’s will.”
She presses on the stapler harder.
“I refuse to feel guilty for doing God’s work.”
When a sharp pain digs into her index finger, she pulls her hand back. Suddenly out of breath, Enyd nudges the stapler off the bureau. It lands on the floor by her slippers. The immense threat of pain has drained all the energy out of her.
***
The dining hall fills with the sound of a hundred and eighteen children’s spoons clinking against porcelain bowls. A set of twenty AI-cameras follow kids of all ages as they eat oatmeal. A smaller billboard rises at the back of the room.
953 263 CC
The AI called Arnie has made a new video of Ava’s injuries. Enyd curses at the moderate increase in numbers. A girl should bring in more CC’s. Is Ava too old for the donors? Or is she old news altogether?
Enyd focuses on her task: finding breakfast. She does her best to ignore the nagging pain around her ankles as she limps into the kitchen. Margaret, Oliver, and Thomas are opening cabinets, drying dishes, and stacking away plates and glasses and cutlery.
Enyd sits at the round table in the middle of the cooking area. She nods at Margaret, who then brings her a steaming bowl of porridge and a jar of strawberry jam. Enyd opens the lid and checks for dots of mold.
“This the last jar, Sister Margaret?”
The AI’s voice replies before Margaret has a chance.
I COUNT ZERO JAM JARS IN THE PANTRY
“Thanks, Arnie,” Enyd says. “Not that I asked you.”
Margaret doesn’t turn to look at Enyd. She’s probably annoyed with Enyd for calling her “Sister.” But rules are rules. Especially when the cameras are on.
The pressure at the back of Enyd’s skull tells her the deaf woman would rather answer her telepathically than speak out loud. She always does. If it’s because of Arnie, or because of her unique way of speaking, Enyd doesn’t know. Margaret pronounces her words with care—in a shattered, particular way. She’s always been a woman of few words, even before a rare illness caused Margaret to lose her hearing, first a little and then completely. But when she does speak, those around listen to her carefully pronounced words with undivided attention. The emphasis and authority of her voice is something Enyd secretly finds intimidating and troublesome.
Enyd lowers her eyes and sinks the spoon into her porridge. And how low are we on bread?
“Twenty loaves. In the. Freezer.”
And sacks of oats?
“I opened. The last one. Yesterday. Morning.”
Enyd looks around the kitchen. The people who control the AI, those ordering videos of bruised, supposedly sick children, always demand more whenever they send in a food order.
“Make them look more banged up,” they’d say. Or, “Can you have yellow pus coming out of the wounds?” followed by, “Can we have a younger plague victim this time?”
But they all have to eat, don’t
they? What options does Enyd have?
Ava got into the phones again, Enyd tells Margaret silently. Last night after bedtime. I think Arnie already sent in the newest video material.
The deaf woman continues washing dishes and doesn’t answer Enyd. Talking about the videos makes her practically mute. She refuses to take part in that part of her job. It’s solely due to Enyd’s efforts that the charity program does so well.
I’ll make a food order after breakfast. Let’s hope that last night’s video was enough.
“And if. It isn’t? What if. They want more? If fingernails. And arms. Aren’t. Enough now?”
Enyd rubs the bridge of her nose. Margaret. The food order. Her sleepless night. It’s all starting to give her a severe headache. I’ll take care of it, Margaret.
“Until. What? What do. They have to. Ask. Before you. Say. That’s. Enough?”
Oliver walks over, interrupting their silent conversation. He carries a small plate of Finnish crispbread and a handful of raisins. Enyd eyes the plate, then Oliver. Her brows rise in a question.
“We’re almost out of tea, Sister Enyd,” Oliver says. He sits down next to Enyd and nods toward the food he’s brought her. As she has done so many times before, Enyd wonders whether the wooden chair will hold the boy’s weight. But Oliver seems oblivious to the seat struggling under his broad frame.
“Plenty of this stuff left, though.” He picks up a piece of crispbread and sniffs it. “Too bad it tastes like cardboard.”
Margaret turns around and walks to the already-dried dishes by the cupboards and starts loading them in. Enyd fishes out a chocolate granola bar that she shoved in her pocket the day before. Under the table, she nudges it against Oliver’s leg. The boy takes the bar, shoves it inside his sleeve. Before Enyd talks, she glances at the kitchen’s AI-camera. The lens points at Margaret by the sink but then starts zooming out to see the whole kitchen.
Enyd gives Oliver a half-smile. Her voice booming, she says, “We should thank the Lord for having anything to eat at all, Oliver.”
Oliver’s brown eyes meet Enyd’s. He smiles and nods at her. “Oh, I am. Very grateful.” He then reaches for one of the crispbreads and takes a bite. A steady scrunching sound fills the kitchen.
